A SUMMARY OF AMERICAN AND ENGLISH DECISIONS ON THE PRINCIPAL QUESTIONS RELATING TO BUILDING, AND THE EMPLOYMENT OF ARCHITECTS, WITH ABOUT EIGHT HUNDRED REFERENCES INCLUDING ALSO PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS IN REGARD TO THE DRAWING OF BUILDING PREFACE. IT seems to be agreed among lawyers that no controversies, as a rule, are tried before courts with so little satisfaction to the litigants and their counsel as building cases. The lawyer finds them usually so technical as to require an amount of special study on his part quite disproportionate to their importance; while the parties to the controversy often suffer, or think they suffer, as much through what they regard as their counsel's inability to understand building matters as through what their counsel, with more reason, considers their own inexcusable ignorance and neglect of the legal principles relating to their business. These difficulties are, obviously, such as can be relieved, to a considerable extent, by means of a book presenting the most important decisions of the courts in building cases, with the principles on which the decisions are based. Such a book the author has endeavored to prepare; and, although the limitations of his legal learning have obliged him to quote, wherever possible, the actual words of judges, in statements of the law, instead of making assertions on his own authority, he has endeavored to make these quotations so comprehensive as to give the reader, whether lawyer or layman, a more accurate idea of the judicial view of the various subjects than can usually be obtained from digests; and, by searching through hundreds, perhaps thousands, of volumes of reports, he has tried to collect everything of importance that American jurisprudence has to offer in regard to building cases. As a result of this labor, the number of citations will be found very large; but the author's experience has shown that counsel in building cases often find such references convenient, and he hopes that in this way, if in no other, his work may be found of use to a profession in which he counts many kind friends. Indeed, without their aid, and that of the officers of the Social Law Library of Boston, to whom he owes his sincerest thanks, this volume could hardly have been written; and, while they must not be charged with any responsibility for its failings, they should certainly have a share of the credit for whatever merit it may be found to possess. 22 CONGRESS STREET, BOSTON, MASS., August 1, 1894. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE ARCHITECT AND the Owner. Why the Architect Should Know Something of Law. - The Architect's Employment. Engage- ment for Services which Cannot be Completed Within a Year Must be in Writing. What May be Taken as a Signature. - Contract Through - - - - - CHAPTER II. THE ARCHITECT'S DUTIES TO HIS EMPLOYER. The Architect's Position in Society. The Skill and Care Required of Archi- What are Reasonable Skill and Care. Architect's Duty to be Ascertained by Evidence, not by Caprice of Jury. - Not Architect's Duty sation Cannot be Recovered from Two Persons for the Same Injury. The Objection to the Law of Contributory Misfeasance. The French Law of Architects' Responsibility. The Position of Architects in the Napoleonic Period. Special French Distinctions. "Solidarity" of Responsibility - |
