Dixie Tank & Bridge Co., a Corporation v. County of Orange, a County of the State of California, and Willis H. Warner

In late August, 1956, the 100,000 gallon water tank at the Orange County Hospital needed repairing in its rivets and its seams and needed repainting on its outside and relining with an asphalt preparation on the inside. Dixie Tank and Bridge Company specializes in doing just such work. It did the work. No contention is made that the work was not satisfactory, but the Board of Supervisors of Orange County now will not pay the sum of $7,511.60 (or any part of it) which Dixie claims is due it for the work which it completed November 21, 1956. The defense, on which the county has been sustained on a motion for judgment on the pleadings in this diversity case, is that the work was a single job in excess of $4,000 and that there were no real plans and specifications or advertising in newspapers for bids as required by the California statutes. Then a holding followed that the contract or contracts for the work were absolutely void and, further, that there is no recovery on quantum meruit. The decision was based on the district court’s view of pertinent California cases.

A listing of the “paper work” backing up this “job” is desirable. Officials of the hospital, a county agency, sent one…