Laver

Plaintiffs are copartners in the practice of their profession of architects. They sued in this action to recover the alleged reasonable value of services performed, it is claimed, at defendant’s request in the preparation of drawings, plans and specifications for a building defendant had in mind to erect. After verdict and judgment in plaintiffs’ favor, the court granted a new trial on the sole ground specified in its order that it erred at the trial “in permitting the introduction of evidence of a rule of compensation of architects established by architects’ institutes or associations.” Plaintiffs appeal, and contend, firstly, that the court mistook in assuming that it had allowed evidence of the character mentioned in the order granting a new trial. While it hardly appears that plaintiffs directly offered the conventional rates of compensation fixed by any society of architects for professional services, yet there was an undertone of reliance thereon in a great part of the evidence for plaintiffs as the basis on which estimates of the value of their services were founded; and it sufficiently appears that defendant ineffectually endeavored, by motion to strike out and otherwise,…