McGowan Bros. Hardware Co. v. Fidelity & Deposit Co. of Maryland

Citations

• 84 Wash. 470
• 147 P. 44
• 1915 Wash. LEXIS 1233

Syllabus

<p>States — Building Contracts — Performance — Final Acceptance —Action on Bond — Materialmen. The architect’s final certificate of construction is a conclusive acceptance of a building erected under the direction of the state board of control, where the contract gave the architect complete control of the work, and provided for payments on the architect’s certificates, the final payment to be made when the work was completed, and accepted by the “owner and architect,” and that no certificate except the final one shall be conclusive evidence of the performance of the contract; hence a material-man, in order to maintain an action on a bond given to secure the performance of the contract, must file a claim within thirty days after such acceptance of the work, as required by Rem. & Bal. Code, § 1161.</p> <p>Same — Contracts — Final Acceptance — Delegation to Architects. Where the state board of control has been given power to contract for public buildings, without limitations forbidding such delegation, it may delegate to the architects the right to determine when the work contracted for conforms to the contract and specifications, and to finally accept the work if the contract was satisfied in that regard.</p> <p>States — Contracts — Acceptance by Architect — Impeachment. An architect’s certificate of the completion of a state building cannot be impeached, in the absence of a showing of fraud on his part, by the fact that the date of completion was recited as of a later day in a labor report of the state’s construction superintendent.</p>