SPECIFICATIONS 119 



works at this extra cost : secondly, that the defendants had 

 fraudulently misrepresented the structure and existence of 

 this wall, and had thereby induced the plaintiffs to enter into 

 the contract to their detriment. The defendants relied on 

 the absence of a certificate from their engineer and on the 

 conditions of the specification, and they denied the making of 

 any representation and any fraud. It was held that the 

 specification only protected the defendants in respect of honest 

 mistakes by themselves or their agents, and that it was for a 

 jury to say whether there was fraud or not. In giving judg- 

 ment, the Lord Chancellor pointed out that evidence was 

 adduced at the trial from which the jury might, if they thought 

 right, conclude that the plaintiffs were induced to enter into 

 the contract by statements made on behalf of the defendants. 

 There was also evidence for the jury that those statements were 

 made either with a knowledge of their falsity or (which was 

 the same thing) with a reckless indifference whether they 

 were true or false, on the part of the engineers employed by 

 the defendants to make the plans which were submitted as 

 the basis of the tender. Having referred to the clauses which 

 pointed out that the plaintiffs were not to rely on the plans, he 

 said : " Now it seems clear that no one can escape liability for 

 his own fraudulent statements by inserting in a contract a 

 clause that the other party shall not rely on them. I will not 

 say that a man, himself innocent, may not under any circum- 

 stances, however peculiar, guard himself by apt and express 

 clauses from liability for the fraud of his own agents. It 

 suffices to say that in my opinion the clauses before us do not 

 admit of such a construction. They contemplate honesty on 

 both sides and protect only against honest mistakes. The 

 principal and the agent are one, and it does not signify which 

 of them made the incriminated statement or which of them 

 possessed the guilty knowledge." 



The moral of the above case is clear. It was laid to the 

 charge of the engineers that they had made certain representa- 

 tions which misled the contractors ; and it was decided by 

 the House of Lords that, if those charges were proved, they 

 must be deemed to have been made on behalf of the employers. 

 In these circumstances it is essential that in drawing a 

 specification no statement shall be made in reckless disregard 

 of the question whether it be true or false. 



