Paterson

Plaintiff brought this action against defendant, The Board of Trustees of the Montecito Union School District (hereinafter referred to as “Board of Trustees") and the individual members thereof to reform a school building construction contract, after full performance by plaintiff and defendants, to recover for a deficiency in the bid and contract price resulting from plaintiff’s clerical error in making his cost computations. Plaintiff had judgment and defendants appeal.

The facts are simple and without substantial conflict. The Board of Trustees employed Chester Car jola, a licensed architect, to prepare plans and specifications for a new school building at Montecito, California. Plaintiff, a licensed contractor, in response to an advertisement for bids on the building, prepared and submitted a total bid of $144,800. In computing his bid, plaintiff used a work sheet on which he entered the figure of $12,000 for the plumbing subcontract in one column, but upon extending this figure to the totals column he entered the figure of $1,200, which latter figure was used in computing his total bid, thus causing his bid to be $10,800 less than if he had extended the figure of $12,000 into…