Christie v. United States

Background

A group of contractors had a 1900 federal contract to build three locks and dams on the Warrior River in Alabama and finished the work in 1903. They sued the United States for about $207,304.50, claiming many extra costs: delayed start, building wagon roads, harder excavation and pile driving because the borings and drawings misrepresented the ground, extra excavation from an imposed "angle of repose," and costs for additional cofferdams. The lower court awarded only $9,491.57 for delay and road construction, and the contractors appealed.

Reasoning

The Court examined whether the government’s published borings and drawings were misleading and whether that misrepresentation caused extra expense. The findings showed borings omitted indications of buried logs, cemented sand and gravel, and impenetrable conglomerate; the resident engineer knew of some indications but did not record them. The Court concluded those positive representations reasonably misled the contractors who lacked time to make their own borings, so the Court reversed the denial of recovery for the extra excavation and pile-driving costs tied to that misrepresentation. By contrast, the Court upheld the government’s choice of excavation slopes (the “angle of repose”) because the engineer’s decision was honestly made under contract terms that left such judgments to the officer. The Court also refused to require payment for cofferdams ordered and later disapproved, finding the contract allocated that risk to the contractors.

Real world impact

Contractors working on federal projects can recover extra costs when government-provided borings and drawings positively misrepresent subsurface conditions and are relied on. But engineer decisions about slopes and temporary protections remain binding when honestly exercised and when the contract places that risk on the contractor. The Court sent the misrepresentation claim back to the lower court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.