97 Ala. 690 | Ala. | 1892
— This action is prosecuted by Whitaker & Jeffries for the contract price of building a house by them for the defendant Anderson. One of the defenses was that plaintiffs undertook to build the house in a workmanlike manner and did not build it in a workmanlike manner to the damage and injury of the defendant in a sum which is stated and pleaded in recoupment against plaintiff’s claim. Defendant’s evidence supported this plea, going, as it did, to show that many soft brick were used in the exterior of the walls which the contract required to be built of hard brick, that the floors were not even or level, that the windows were at unequal distances from the floor, though intended to be on the same level and were not straight vertically, but out of plumb, that spaces were left between the window frames and the wall at the top, that apertures or cracks were left in the walls to the extent that “in one room day-light could be seen through the walls in seventeen places,” that inferior and old lumber was used and that neither the carpenter work nor the brick work was done in a workmanlike manner, &c. The evidence tended to show that “the witnesses who testified on the part of the defendant that the work was not done in a workmanlike manner were workmen who had been trained in their trades in New England, and had but little experience in building houses in the section of the country in which this contract was made and this house was built, and had resided there only a few months.” On the other hand, witnesses for the plaintiffs in this connection “were workmen who had performed work and obtained experience as workmen in the section of country of this contract and house, and were acquainted with the manner of doing such
Tlie court erred in giving the charge quoted, and its judgment must be reversed. The cause is remanded.
Beversed and remanded.