Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ The United States had a right to get someone else to complete the work, and to charge the defendants with the reason able difference in cost. Indeed, this right was expressly stipulated in the specifications, if, during the progress of the work, a board should recommend that the contract be 'annulled' on the ground that it would not be completed in time. The cost to the United States was the least for which it could get the work done under the conditions upon which the government was bound to contract, and must be assumed to have been reasonable, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary. ”

“ We deem what we had said sufficient to justify our conclusions without considering the argument of the Solicitor General, that the contractor was given a right to the extension of time if the Secretary of the Navy decided for it, and that the Secretary of the Navy is to be regarded as a third party and stranger to the contract, rather than as representing the United States. ”

“ The damages allowed in the circuit court were the difference in cost between the old contract and the new; viz., $25,588.02, with interest, or $33,389.52 in all.
The defense is rested mainly on the extension of time, it not appearing that the sureties assented to the change otherwise than by the contract, which, it is said, merely recognizes what was true without it,-that the contractor might ask for more time, and the government grant it, if so minded. It is argued that the expression of the obvious does not alter the general rule of law. ”