McLemore v. Coleman
McLemore v. Coleman
Opinion of the Court
By this action plaintiff partnership seeks to recover for engineering and surveying services allegedly rendered defendants under an oral contract or, in the alternative, on a quantum-meruit basis. Plaintiff’s claims, aggregating $5,375, comprise these items:
1. Surveying services rendered in Coleman Park Subdivision in connection with 135 lots at $25 per lot $3,375
2. Preliminary land planning in connection with certain property designated as the Waller Estates 750
3. Preliminary land planning in connection with property known as Dogwood Plantation 1,250
Total $5,375
Defendants deny entering into any contract with plaintiff for the services claimed, or that they are indebted unto plaintiff for any sums whatever.
Plaintiff firm was employed by defendant, Donald S. Coleman, under a verbal contract in 1954 to perform the engineering and surveying services in connection with a specific subdivision, without an agreement for future work.. Nevertheless, plaintiff’s firm was continued in Coleman’s service on the same basis for 14 subdivisions developed between 1954 and 1960. According to Coleman, plaintiff was to be compensated on a basis of six percent of the cost of street improvements, utility development, and water, sewerage and drainage installations. Plaintiff claims defendants were to pay, in addition, a final surveying fee of $35 per lot. Because plaintiff did not perform the services as enumerated in Item 1, it voluntarily reduced its charges therefor to $25 per lot. That they had such an agreement for the payment of this additional amount was testified by J. C. McLemore, one of plaintiff’s partners, but this fact is vehemently denied by Coleman.
The alternative demand for plaintiff’s claims, that is, on a basis of a quantum-meruit, is equally without merit. Plaintiff asserts, and its witness so testified, that the work had not been performed nor the services rendered. Hence, there is no basis for recovery on a quantum meruit.
Nor can we conclude that plaintiff has sustained its burden of proof and established, by a preponderance of the evidence, agreements concerning Items 2 and 3 of its demands. Plaintiff’s testimony in this regard is denied by Coleman. In fact, defendant Coleman’s position appears to be supported by the fact that, over the years, plaintiff had never submitted a bill to defendant for these charges. It was admitted that defendant Coleman paid plaintiff, promptly on receipt of statements rendered, for services performed approximating $100,000, which included a statement for $5,120 for services in connection with Dogwood Plantation. It is also significant, in our opinion, that plaintiff never made claim for these purported land-planning services in Items 2 and 3 until its employment had been dispensed with and another firm employed in its stead.. In fact, one of plaintiff’s partners admitted that, had its services been continued by defendants, there would not have been any charges made for these items.
From our own review of the record, we have not been able to find, and it has not been pointed out to us, any manifest error in the obvious conclusion of the trial court that plaintiff had not sustained its burden of proof by a reasonable preponderance of the evidence and established its claims to a legal certainty.
The judgment appealed is, accordingly, affirmed at plaintiff-appellant’s cost.
Affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.