Cases - Felton v Wharrie

Record details

Name

Felton v Wharrie

Date

(1906)

Citation

HBC, Vol 2, 398

Keywords

Construction claim - time for completion - liquidated damages - extension of time - re-entry - entitlement to re-entry

Summary

The claimant was a building contractor who was engaged by the defendant to pull down houses on the defendant's site within 42 working days. The contract provided that liquidated damages would be payable at a daily rate for every day after the completion date that the properties remained on site. The contractor failed to finish the works in the stipulated time, and was duly asked by the employer whether or not the work would be finished within four months. The contractor was unsure, and thus unable to commit to any firm completion date. After two weeks, the employer ejected the contractor from site and engaged a third party contractor to complete the demolition works. The Court of Appeal held that the employer was wrong to do so, stating that:

'If he were going to act upon the claimant's conduct as being evidence of his not going on, he ought to have told him of it, and to have said "I treat that as a refusal", and the man would know of it; but the fact of allowing him to go on cannot be any evidence of justification of re-entry.'