Villwell Builders I, LLC v. Pereira

Syllabus

The plaintiff home improvement contractor appealed from the trial court's judgments for the defendant condominium owners on their respective coun- terclaims for breach of contract and negligence. The plaintiff had com- menced a separate action for, inter alia, breach of contract against the owners of each of four condominium units following the owners' termination of contracts to construct decks for their units. Prior to trial, the plaintiff withdrew its complaint in each case, and the court consolidated the cases for trial on the defendants' counterclaims. On appeal, the plaintiff claimed, inter alia, that the court improperly found that it had materially breached the contracts it had entered with the respective defendants. Held: The trial court's finding that the plaintiff had materially breached the con- tracts was not clearly erroneous, as the court's finding that the delay in construction was a material breach was supported by the evidence in the record even though the contracts did not specifically provide that time was of the essence in the completion of the construction projects. The trial court improperly calculated the amount of damages that the defen- dants could recover on their breach of contract counterclaims because the defendants did not incur losses for which they could recover in contract, as the court expressly found that no defendant paid more than the original contract price for the completion of the work called for under the contracts, and, accordingly, this court vacated the damages awards and remanded the cases with direction to enter awards of nominal damages on the breach of contract counterclaims. To the extent that the trial court's damages awards included any amounts attributable to its finding that the plaintiff breached the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, the court erred in issuing those awards, as the defendants neither pleaded a claim for such a breach or alleged conduct by the plaintiff that would support such a cla