Melbourne Harbour Trust Commissioners v Hancock [1927] HCA 26

Bles v GRS

Constructions

SAS Hs 570 HIGH COURT {HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA.] THE MELBOURNE HARBOUR TRUST ; COMMISSIONERS — 2 0 2 ae AND HANCOCK Scar' Enea' el ene REsPon ON APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA. H.C. or A, Arbitration—Award—Setting aside award—Construction of cont 1927. construction left to arbitrator—Application of wrong principle—U1 See, award—Misconduet of arbitrator—Arbitration Act 1915 (Vict.) (No. 2614), a MELpourne, 19. : Mar. 14-17; : ate a: A contract between the omen and the nit, for the cunyiaa by the respondent of certain works in connection with the construction es Ce wharf, contained a clause providing that the appellants' engineer should | Gavan | Dufty, the power of requiring from time to time the omission of any particular Starke JJ. or portions of the work and of deducting the value of the omitted part from

amount of the contract and that the respondent should have no claim for lo damage or compensation on that account. Certain omissions having

required by the engineer and a dispute having arisen between the parti reference was made to an arbitrator of the question whether under the the omission could properly be made. The arbitrator by his award determin that the omission was not one that could properly be made under the e and he stated in his reasons for his award that the contract did not the engineer to require an omission which fundamentally altered the co as he found that the particular omission did.

that the construction of the contract was a matter committed to the that his decision thereon was correct and, the question whether the omission did fundamentally alter the nature of the contract being one arbitrator alone, that his award was not open to attack on the ground construing the contract he had proceeded upon wrong principles of const or had otherwise been guilty of some error of law.