178 THE LAW AFFECTING ENGINEEKS 



7. Defects after completion where there is no defects clause. 

 The importance to an employer of having an engineer who 

 will exercise proper supervision and take due care in scru- 

 tinising the materials used by the contractor is emphasised 

 in cases where the contract prevents the employer pursuing 

 a remedy against the contractor for defects appearing after 

 completion. It was decided in the case of Lord Bateman 

 v. Thompson, 1875, 2 H. B. C. 28, that where a certificate of 

 completion and satisfaction by the employer's architect is 

 made conclusive and is given, the employer has no right of 

 action against the builder for defects subsequently discovered, 

 except within the time and upon the terms specially stipulated 

 by the contract. The facts of that case were somewhat 

 peculiar. The work done by the contractor was disgraceful, 

 but a period of six years elapsed between the completion of 

 the work and the commencement of the action. The architect, 

 however, had approved the work and materials and had duly 

 certified the amounts due under the contract from time to 

 time. Lord Coleridge, C. J., clearly enunciated the principle 

 which led the Court to say that an action would not lie against 

 the contractors. He said : " This is the ordinary case, not of 

 an arbitration, but of the employer having made the certificate 

 of the architect binding in certain cases against himself, and 

 still more of his having made his own expression of satis- 

 faction binding against himself. And having received the one 

 and having expressed the other he cannot now say that he did 

 not receive the one and did not express the other. It may 

 seem a hard thing to say, but the answer is the answer which 

 Mr. Justice Willes gave in the case of Goodyear v. Mayor of 

 Weymouth, 1865, 35 L. J. C. P. 12, that if you employ an 

 architect who does not know his business, and who certifies 

 that he is satisfied when he ought not to express satisfaction, 

 you must be bound by his mistake. It is not in the least an 

 answer to say that you have employed an architect who does 

 not know his work, and if people employ architects who do 

 not know their work, and who lead them into mistakes, and 

 place contractors bound hand and foot into the hands of such 

 persons, and such persons either pass bad work, or as it 

 appears in this case actually direct bad work, they cannot 

 afterwards in equity or fairness turn round on the contractor, 

 and say ' Now I will bring an action for damage that I have 

 sustained, because you have fulfilled the direct instructions of 



