Implied warranty of plans

Definition

The rule that an owner who supplies the drawings warrants they will produce a sound result.

Why It Matters

A contractor bound to build to plans prepared by the owner is not responsible for the consequences of defects in them, and the Supreme Court said so in 1918 in words still quoted. It also held that a boilerplate duty to examine the site does not require the contractor to work out at its peril whether the specified design would prove adequate. That line separates a plan-and-spec concrete sub, whose failures are the designer's problem, from a design-build foundation contractor who owns the settlement, and it is invisible in the profit and loss.