Mauldin v. Sheffer

150 S.E.2d 150 (1966)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

P was a licensed architect. P entered into an oral contract with D, a registered professional mechanical engineer. D furnished P with certain engineering designs, plans, drawings, specifications, and engineering data for P's use in the design and construction of additions to five specified school buildings. P paid D $200 per week. P used D's work product in his overall architectural plans. There were numerous errors in D's work product, contrary to generally accepted engineering standards. The errors concerned the plumbing, heating, and electrical designs. The State School Building Authority recalled the bids and returned the plans to P for the correction of the engineering errors of D. D made fixes, but those revisions were rejected. P's clients and the State School Building Authority made certain charges against P for expenses incurred in advertising and readvertising the projects for bids. P had to hire other engineers completely redesign, re-engineer, redraw and rewrite the designs, plans, specifications and data. Because of the mistakes, P was not allowed to serve as architect on said projects. P eventually sued ex delicto for D’s wilful, deliberate and intentional disregard of his duty to use reasonable and ordinary care in the performance of his engineering duties. P sought $500,000 in damages. D demurred to the action in tort, claiming this was merely a breach of contract action. The court overruled the grounds of general demurrer and D appealed.