30 Wash. 378 | Wash. | 1902
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The substance of the complaint in this case is that the appellants are owners of a certain lot in the city of Seattle, and that they engaged respondent to effect a loan and construct a dwelling house thereon. Despondent was to have the exclusive management of the financing and construction of the house. The plans and
Appellants’ first assignment of error is the action of the court in refusing their application for leave to amend their complaint so as to include damages for delay in the completion of their dwelling. This would have introduced into the trial a new element of damages, which the defendant had not had an opportunity to answer, and the discretion of the trial court in permitting or refusing amendments during the trial is so large that this court has never interfered with it, except when it appeared that such discretion was abused. A perusal of the pleadings as
We think there is no merit in the second contention,— that the court erred in allowing the introduction of certain testimony. The testimony was an explanation, offered by respondent, of circumstances surrounding the contract, and, as there was a direct conflict between the allegations of the complaint and the answer in regard to what the contract was, we think the testimony was admissible.
As to the third assignment there was no error in permitting respondent to prove an alleged oral agreement to which the wife was not a party, for, in any event, the wife would be bound by any contract made by her husband for the benefit of the community property, and she would also be estopped, under the testimony in this case, from refusing to pay for the changes made, after standing by and seeing the work expended.
The record in this case is so indefinite that it is difficult to tell what instructions were excepted to by the appellants. Many of the instructions which the court refused to give, and which refusal is assigned as error by the appellants, were, in substance, given by the court, and we have uniformly held that the court is not required to announce the law in any particular form of words. This, we think, applies'to the fifth and sixth instructions asked by the appellants, and the fourth instruction asked for was properly refused for the reason that there was no attempt on the part of the respondent to prove that he had built according to the plans and specifications alleged in appellants’ complaint. The sixth instruction was substantially given by the court. The court’s instructions are too long to set forth in this opinion, but we think the law governing the case was properly announced in such instructions. The affirmative matter of the reply was properly stricken out
An examination of the testimony in the cause convinces
The judgment is affirmed.
Beavis, C. J., and Fullerton, Anders and Mount, JJ., concur.