Sexton v. City of Chicago

Citations

• 107 Ill. 323
• 1883 Ill. LEXIS 266

Syllabus

<p>1. Practice—trial by the court—degree of evidence required, to support a proposition of law. In the ease of a trial by the court without a jury, if there is evidence in the record tending to establish the hypothetical case made by a proposition of law based thereon, the court should give the same, if otherwise unobjectionable. It is not necessary there should t>e a preponderance of evidence to warrant the making of such proposition.</p> <p>2. Building contract—reference to plans and specifications—how far controlling the rights of the parties. A city had, prior to letting contracts for furnishing materials and doing work on a proposed city hall, through its architect and draughtsman, prepared a general plan of the building, consisting of numerous drawings and specifications, showing, in distinct views or subordinate plans, the different parts of the building, and the different kinds of work and material required, and the manner in which the same was to be done, and also, with a view of facilitating bidding on the different parts of the work, and for the purpose of furnishing each contractor after the work was let with a distinct plan relating mainly to his own work, caused a number of copies or duplicates of the subordinate plans of the work to be prepared, some of them showing the stone work, and others the iron work, and so on, and advertised for bids for the several parts of the work. From the copies or duplicates shown him on file, a contractor bid on the iron work, which bid was accepted, and a formal contract was entered into between him and the city, in which the city reserved the right to forfeit the contract, or any part of it, for any breach or default on the part of the contractor in its performance, and furnished him the same plans and specifications to be used by him in doing the work: Held, in an action by the contractor to recover upon a quantum meruit, that the reference in the contract to the plans and specifications was to be understood as meani