Meyer v Mercer et Al

• Jurisdiction: Antigua and Barbuda
• Court: Court of Appeal (Antigua and Barbuda)
• Judge: Lewis, C.J.,Gordon J.A.,Henville J.A.
• Judgment Date: 23 June 1967
• Neutral Citation: AG 1967 CA 4
• Docket Number: Civil Appeal No. 4 of 1966
• Date: 23 June 1967

West Indies Associated States Supreme Court

Lewis, C.J., Gordon, J.A., Henville, J.A.

Civil Appeal No. 4 of 1966

Meyer

and

Mercer et al

Contract - Breach — Damages.

Facts: Evidence revealed that the appellant breached the building contract for construction of a house. The trial judge held that the house constructed was valueless and that the respondent was entitled to damages for its demolition and reconstruction. The issues were whether the house was valueless and whether the award of damages were excessive.

Held: The appellants in their defence at the trial did not present any evidence that the house had any salvage value, nor would the court remit the matter to allow the appellants to offer such evidence. Appeal dismissed.

Lewis, C.J.

1 This is an appeal from the judgment of the Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Cecil Lewis, sitting in Antigua, dated 1st October 1966, awarding damages in the sum of $56,360 to the plaintiffs for breach of a building contract. The contract was to build a house for the sum of $46,532 and an additional sum of $1,468 was, by agreement, paid for extras, bringing the total up to $48,000.

2 By paragraph 6 of the amended Statement of Claim the plaintiffs alleged that by reason of certain breaches of contract set in paragraph 4 and The Particulars of Damage and the damage resulting therefrom, the said dwelling house is worthless and unsafe, and is incapable of being repaired, and they claimed for demolishing $5,000, reconstruction $52,400 and disturbance $1,000. The amended particulars also alleged substantial breaches of contract in that both structurally and architecturally the specifications had been departed from, and that there were a number of faults in the foundations of the building. It was also alleged that poor materials or materials not of the quality required by the contract had been used. A great deal of evidence was given at the trial, some of it by expert witnesses on both sides, but it is not necessary to go into the details of it, because the only ground of appeal that has been argued here today, is that the judge erred in his assessment of damages.

3 Suffice it to say that shortly after the building was occupied it began to show signs of cracking and that attempts to repair it were fruitless. New and substantial cracks appeared in the course of the two years during which it was lived in, and the learned judge, who visited the building during the course of the trial, described it as a shambles, totally unfit for human habitation. One of the grounds of appeal that the decision was against the weight of the evidence, has been abandoned, as has also been another ground, which alleged that the judge wrongfully excluded all evidence as to the behaviour of adjoining buildings generally in Antigua due to a severe and prolonged drought at the material time, so that the validity of the learned trial judge's findings on the facts are no longer challenged.

4 For the plaintiffs, evidence was given at the trial that the house was incapable of repair or, at any rate, that such repairs as might be done would not produce a house of the type or quality which was called far in contract, that there would be likelihood of further cracking taking place...