Opinion · Supreme Court of the United States

Christie v. United States

Christie v. United States, 237 U.S. 234 (1915)

Type
Opinion
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction
Federal
Date
1915-04-12
Topic
general

How later courts describe this case

  • The Court noted that the "[claimants were forced to rely wholly upon the information furnished them, time not being sufficient to permit them to make their own borings_”
  • The Court noted that the "[c]laimants were forced to rely wholly upon the information furnished them, time not being sufficient to permit them to make their own borings... ."

Citator

UpLaw has not yet analyzed Christie v. United States. The absence of a flag is not a finding that it is good law.

Cited by
146 opinions

Headnotes

  1. Contracts Law — Government Contracts — Misrepresentation in Specifications Where specifications contain a positive and deceptive representation of the material to be excavated that actually misleads the bidder who obtains the contract, and time did not permit the contractor to make independent borings to verify the representations, the contractor is entitled to recover the expense incurred over what the work would have cost had the representations been accurate, and the legal aspects of the case are unaffected by the fact that the misstatements were made without any sinister purpose. 237 U.S. at 242
  2. Contracts Law — Government Contracts — "Angle of Repose" Where the specifications provide that the limits and quantities of excavation depend upon the "ascertained angles of repose" and the selection of that angle is committed to the judgment of the engineer officer, the Government's only obligation is the honest exercise of judgment by its engineers, and the contractor is not entitled to damages for sloughing of the banks allegedly caused by too sharp an angle where the angle was adopted from experience in similar work, was adequate absent extraordinary conditions, and no practical angle would have remained stable under the abnormal flood conditions encountered. 237 U.S. at 245
  3. Contracts Law — Government Contracts — Appeal to Supervising Officer Where the contract provides that the decision of the United States Engineer Officer in charge shall be accepted as final and without appeal in all cases of dispute, protests made only to a subordinate resident engineer do not preserve the contractor's objection to action taken by the engineer officer. 237 U.S. at 248
  4. Contracts Law — Government Contracts — Cost of Recovering Materials A contractor is not entitled under the contract to recover the cost of recovering buried concrete forms where the recovery was done voluntarily for the purpose of reusing the forms. 237 U.S. at 249
  5. Contracts Law — Government Contracts — Authority of Officer to Bind Government The Government is not responsible to a contractor for an unauthorized promise of additional compensation made by an officer lacking authority to make it, where the promise is revoked before the work of construction commences, leaving the original contract to prevail. 237 U.S. at 253
  6. Contracts Law — Government Contracts — Extra Work and Cofferdams A paragraph of a Government contract providing for extra work does not supersede other paragraphs requiring the contractor to perform specified work at his own expense; where the contract requires the contractor to furnish at his own cost all cofferdams necessary for the protection of the permanent work and leaves to the contractor's own judgment whether cofferdams are needed, the contractor is not entitled to extra compensation for cofferdams constructed to the height made necessary by the contemplated flood conditions. 237 U.S. at 252