Huckestein v. Nunnery Hill Incline Plane Co.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Huckestein v. Nunnery Hill Incline Plane Co., 173 Pa. 169 (Pa. 1896)
33 A. 1108; 1896 Pa. LEXIS 677
Collum, Dean, Fell, Gbeen, Mitchell, Williams

Huckestein v. Nunnery Hill Incline Plane Co.

Opinion of the Court

Per Curiam,

The learned court below gave to the plaintiff every possible opportunity to recover before the jury that can be conceived. There was no provision in any of the correspondence, or in the contract as signed, or in the annexed specifications that gave .an absolute right to the plaintiff to have any earth excavation whatever. But there was positive provision that all.the work, including excavation, should be done, “ according to the directions and under the supervision of the engineer in charge of the-construction of said incline.” As no excavation, for- the loss of which the present action is brought, was directed by the engineer it is difficult to conceive upon what rational basis the claim can be sustained. Then too the receipt in full for' every item of claim made after the work was all completed, and which was “ in full settlement for all stone work and excavation, labor, material, etc., furnished in-'connection with the construction, etc., of the Nunnery Hill Incline Plane,” may well have convinced the jury that all demands under the contract were fully adjusted, settled and paid. Nevertheless, notwithstanding this receipt in full, the court left it to the jury to say whether this extraordinary claim for loss of profits was intended to be included within it. This suit was not commenced until nearly *175six years bad elapsed after the work was all done, and in all that time this claim for alleged loss of profits bad never been beard of. The only wonder is that the verdict was not absolutely in favor of the defendant instead of for six and a quarter cents in the plaintiff’s favor. The claim is very stale, it is unsupported by any reasonable view of the testimony and in our opinion it is entirely devoid of merit. The verdict was a condemnation of it on its merits. We discover no error in the several assignments and they are all dismissed.

• Judgment affirmed.

Reference

Full Case Name
John Huckestein v. The Nunnery Hill Incline Plane Company
Cited By
1 case
Status
Published
Syllabus
Contract — Construction of contract — Receipt. Plaintiff, an owner of land over which the defendant was about to construct an incline plane, wrote to the defendant that he desired that the trestles should be set so that their base should be no higher than the grade of a certain street, or at a rise of four or five feet to the hundred feet from the street grade. Defendant accepted the proposition with the modification that the east wall should be “of the height of the grade as it now is immediately west and next to the trestle.” On the same day that the proposition was accepted, plaintiff and defendant entered into an agreement in writing by which plaintiff agreed to do all the necessary excavation for defendant “ according to the directions and under the supervision of the engineer in charge of the construction of said incline.” Nothing was said in any of the papers as to any earth excavation. After the work was completed plaintiff gave to defendant a receipt “ in full settlement for all stone work and excavation ” furnished in connection with the construction of the incline plane. Nearly six years after the road was finished plaintiff brought suit against defendant to recover profits which he would have made by earth excavation if the trestles had been set at the level of the street mentioned in his proposition instead of upon the natural surface of the ground as they had been set in accordance with the instructions of the defendant’s engineer. Held, that plaintiff was not entitled to recover such profits.