Vickery v. Ritchie
Supreme Court of Massachusetts
88 N.E. 835, 202 Mass. 247 (1909)
- Written by Jayme Weber, JD
Facts
Edward Vickery (plaintiff) and John Ritchie (defendant) entered into a written contract calling for Vickery to build a Turkish bath house on Ritchie’s property. Due to fraud by the contracted architect, Vickery and Ritchie ended up with signed copies of the contract specifying different prices for the work. Vickery’s contract promised payment of nearly $34,000, whereas Ritchie’s contract listed the price as roughly $23,000. The architect’s continuing misrepresentations prevented the parties from discovering the conflicting contracts until the project was almost complete. After the discrepancy was discovered, Vickery sued Ritchie to recover about $10,500, the amount remaining under the approximately $34,000 contract price. An audit indicated that the market value for Vickery’s work was approximately $33,500 and in fact cost Vickery just under $33,000. The audit also showed that the Turkish bath only added $22,000 to the value of Ritchie’s property. The trial court found in favor of Ritchie, and Vickery alleged exceptions.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Knowlton, C.J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 810,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,300 briefs, keyed to 988 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.
