Stephen Herrick v. the Estate of Sewall F. Belknap and the Vermont Central Railroad Company

Summary

The Supreme Court of Vermont reversed a chancery decree awarding a railroad subcontractor, on a special master's report, roughly twice the deficiency he had claimed for work under-estimated by the railroad company's engineers. The court held that the clause making the engineer the sole judge of the quantity and quality of the work, without appeal, constituted a binding, irrevocable submission to arbitration; that equity could relieve against the estimates for fraud or mistake but not where the contractor acquiesced at the time; and that the subcontractor, having no privity with the railroad company, could proceed against it only upon connivance in the under-estimates and was confined to the amount claimed in his bill. The masters' report was set aside for fatal formal defects — omission of the points and facts, of the viva voce testimony, and of a stated account — and the case was remanded, the court also holding that purely equitable claims are not barred by non-presentation to commissioners. At the succeeding term the court denied a motion to amend the mandate as to costs, reaffirming that one decision of a point is conclusive in the same case.