Plaintiff, a subcontractor, brought suit to recover the balance due for work performed under an oral contract with defendant. Defendant by counterclaim sought to off-set apрroximately $7,000, the reasonable cost of certain work allegedly covered by the contract price which plaintiff had failed to perform. The matter was tried by,
Defendant had the general contract to build a generating plant. It requested bids for subcontract work on (1) plumbing, (2) heating and (3) air conditioning. Plaintiff submitted a bid for all of this work at a figure of $70,000. Subsequently a representative of the defendant had telеphone conversations with representatives of the plaintiff concerning changеs in the work and a modification of the bid. There were two versions of these telephonе conversations.
Plaintiff made a new bid of approximately $40,000 and understood that the air сonditioning would be omitted from the contract. Defendant’s witness testified that plaintiff agreed to do the air-conditioning work, but the reduced bid resulted from cutting out other items.
Before plaintiff started performance, defendant sent it a written “purchase order” describing the work. This includеd “air conditioning” in bold type and stated the agreed contract price. Plaintiff admittedly rеceived this order, and was not authorized to commence work without it. Officials of plaintiff’s company testified that they did not see the purchase order, or did not understand it as including the air conditioning. Of course, they did not sign it so as to make it a written contract.
As the work progressed, plaintiff sent defendant several “progress reports”. These referred only to plumbing and hеating work, and did not mention air conditioning. When the plumbing and heating job was finished, plaintiff demanded the balance of the contract price. Defendant refused to pay it becausе the air conditioning had not been installed. This phase of the work was subsequently done for aрproximately $7,000 by • another party, and that is the basis of the set-off.
Plaintiff contends that becаuse of the clear misunderstanding in the telephone conversations, the minds of the parties never did meet on the scope of .the work to be performed and consequently there was no express contract. Plаintiff claims the contract price for the plumbing and heating work on the quantum meruit theory, it being shown that the contract price was reasonable for these two services.
The difficulty with plaintiff’s position is that it assumes no contract existed simply because it ■ has a different versiоn of the agreement than that of the defendant. If there is sufficient evidence to show a mеeting of the minds even though the plaintiff denies it, then a court or jury may be justified in finding a contract existed. An express agreement may be proved by direct evidence, or circumstantial evidence, or both. See Sullivan’s Adm’r v. Sullivan,
The parties had actually negotiated about air conditioning work. A vritness for defendant testified the last bid included it. In support of this direct evidence, we have the “purchase order” sent by the defendant to the plaintiff. It specifically refеrred to air-conditioning work. Since this instrument authorized the plaintiff to proceed, the plаintiff should have taken notice of its contents. The trial court could have determined that рlaintiff did have such knowledge. Having proceeded to work on the basis of this order, plaintiff can be held to have assented to its terms.
The fact that the “progress reports” did not mention air conditioning could not change the contract. These reports simply showed work сompleted by plaintiff, and it does not appear that the air-conditioning work must have been carried on at the same time as the plumbing and heating. In any event, these reports lack the persuasiveness of the “purchase order” as evidence of the actuаl agreement. The trial .court correctly allowed this set-off.
We are inclined to believe plaintiff’s claim may be charaсterized as liquidated, but even if not, in a case of this sort, which really involves an accounting, the allowance of interest is a matter within the judicial discretion of the court. See Congoleum-Nairn, Inc. v. M. Livingston & Co.,
The judgment is affirmed.