Youngstown Electric Light Co. v. Butler County Poor District

Citations

• 21 Pa. Super. 95
• 1902 Pa. Super. LEXIS 314

Syllabus

<p>Equity — Mistake—Negligence—Executed contract.</p> <p>A mistake will not be relieved against if it is the result of the party’s own negligence, as for instance, where he has not taken the trouble to read or to have read to him the paper he was executing, and especially is this the case where the application for relief has been postponed until the contract has been fully performed by both parties, and the party seeking relief does not offer or is unable to restore the other party to his original position.</p> <p>In order to justify a decree for reformation in cases of pure mistake, it is necessary that the mistake should have been mutual. Where the mistake has been on one side only, the utmost that the party desiring relief can obtain is rescission, not reformation.</p> <p>After a poor house has been completed under a contract with the county commissioners approved by a judge under the Act of April 19,1895, P. L. 38, a bill cannot be maintained by the contractors for a reformation of the contract on the ground of mistake, and for the payment of an amount in excess of the contract price, where the mistake alleged was in constructing the building in accordance with plans and specifications of their own engineer without knowledge that they did not conform to the plans and specifications accompanying the contract and on file in the commissioner’s office. In such a case there is no mutual mistake as to a material fact</p>