a drawing requiring contractor to “stub out” utility lines five feet from building was complementary to another drawing requiring plaintiff to connect the lines to existing lines, notwithstanding plaintiff’s claims that trade practice only required extending the lines out five feet
How later courts described this case
- a drawing requiring contractor to “stub out” utility lines five feet from building was complementary to another drawing requiring plaintiff to connect the lines to existing lines, notwithstanding plaintiff’s claims that trade practice only required extending the lines out five feet
- “The interpretation of a contract is a question of law for the court to decide and an administrative interpretation of a contract is not binding on the court---- However, a Board’s interpretation of a contract will be given careful consideration and accorded great respect”
- trade practice cannot prevail over unambiguous contract provisions
- “[tjhis paragraph obviously makes the work shown on [the] drawing ... required work, irrespective of plaintiffs interpretation of the specifications”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Davis, Judge,
concurring:
I agree with Judge Skelton’s opinion except that I do not think that the relevant parts of the contract were plain and unambiguous on their face. There was, in my view, a surficial conflict between the two drawings which is properly resolved, as Judge Skelton does very thoroughly, by considering the contract as a whole in all its aspects and parts. The rule that ambiguity works against the drafter is more than neutralized in this instance by the companion canon applicable to a patent and glaring ambiguity or discrepancy. On the whole case the plaintiff cannot prevail.
*83 The illustration referred to on pages 72 et seq. is on the following pages 84 and 85.
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