John Chambers & David Boyd, v. John Crawford and Joseph Barker

John Chambers & David Boyd, v. John Crawford and Joseph Barker. CHAMBERS and Boyd employed Crawford and Barker, boat-builders, to build for them a Kentucky boat, for conveying them and their families down the Ohio. The boat was built, delivered, and loaded; but had not proceeded many miles, till she took in water, and continuing to do so, funk about a mile below the mouth of Turtle-creek, in the Monongahela. The goods aboard, worth upwards of 100l. were lost. The plaintiffs paid the defendants 14l. for the boat, being about a dollar per foot in length. They brought assumsit on an undertaking to build a sufficient Kentucky boat, averring it insufficient, and thereby lost with the goods. Ross, for defendants. One not a workman is not liable for insufficient work, without an express promise. A workman is, without a promise. The defendants are workmen, and liable without a promise. But to what? Only to damage for time lost in getting a better boat. The employer ought not to accept the boat, and then, after a loss, come on the workmen for insufficient workmanship. The employer ought to examine the work at the time, and then either accept or reject it conclusively; and he is bound by his acceptance; and cannot afterwards say, that the work is bad. The loss that has happened is, in a great measure, owing to their own carelessness, in tying the boat insufficiently to the shore. Brackenridge, argued for the plaintiffs, and drew a lively picture of their damage and distress. [MAJORITY — President.] President. If a workman does work insufficiently, he is answerable for all consequences arising from this insufficiency, notwithstanding an acceptance by the employer, without objections; for the employer is not to be presumed acquainted with the execution of the work, and the workman must be. If the loss, in this case, happened through such carelessness or accident, as, in the case of a sufficient boat, would have produced the same effect, you will find for the defendants. But if the loss happened through the insufficiency of the boat, measuring that insufficiency by the expressed intention of the parties, and the usage of the trade, you will find for the plaintiffs, with damages adequate to their loss. The jury found for the plaintiffs 62l. 10s.