Cases - Gilbert & Partners v Knight

Record details

Name

Gilbert & Partners v Knight

Date

[1968]

Citation

2 AII ER 248

Keywords

Contract - architect, engineer - estimates - fixed fee - additional work - quantum meruit - whether the contractor was entitled to be paid for the additional work on a quantum meruit basis

Summary

For a fee of £30, the surveyor claimant agreed to prepare drawings, to arrange tenders, to obtain consents and to settle the accounts for certain proposed alterations to the defendant's property, and to supervise the work of alteration, the cost of which was estimated at roughly £600. When the builder had started work, the owner ordered some more work, bringing the total cost to £2,283. The claimant did not say anything more to the defendant about charges; the defendant did not say anything more to the claimant. The surveyor supervised the additional work. When the work was finished, the claimant submitted an account for £135, being the agreed £30 plus 100 guineas, a scale fee for supervising the additional work. The defendant paid only the agreed £30.

The Court of Appeal applied the dicta of Lord Dunedin in Steven v Bromley & Son (1919) in the context of a charterparty case:

'As regards quantum meruit where there are two parties who are under contract quantum meruit must be a new contract, and in order to have a new contract you must get rid of the old contract.'

The Court considered that these parties had not got rid of the old contract. The defendant was entitled to assume that it was still running between them, and that she would not be asked for a different sum on a different basis.