Cases - Sutcliffe v Chippendale and Edmondson

Record details

Name

Sutcliffe v Chippendale and Edmondson

Date

(1971)

Citation

18 BLR 149

Keywords

Contract - progress of works - termination - whether the employer was entitled to determine the contractor's employment

Summary

The defendant prepared a design for the claimant, who was proposing to have a house built. In June 1963 tenders had been invited, and the lowest accepted. Work started in July 1963. The completion date was 31 January 1964. Soon after work commenced the plaintiff had started to express his concern at what he regarded as slow progress.

Completion dates slipped by. By mid-May 1964 the house was still not complete and it was apparent that there were numerous defects. The claimant formed the view that the contractors lacked the necessary foreman supervision to carry out the work expeditiously or adequately and dismissed them because they displayed lack of competence or ability to complete the work.

The claimant was unable to recover the cost of remedial works from the original contractors who became insolvent. Recovery from the architect depended, among other things, upon the claimant's right to determine the contract.

The Court considered that the whole combination of circumstances that then existed justified the claimant in ordering the contractors off the site. The Court referred to the contractors' manifest inability to comply with the completion date requirements, the nature and number of complaints from subcontractors, the fact that the quality of work was deteriorating and the number of defects was multiplying, many of which he had tried unsuccessfully to have put right. These all pointed to the conclusion that the contractors had neither the ability, competence or the will by this time to complete the work in the matter required by the contract.