Facts
In this case, it involved a design contract that an architect had received from a Catholic parish. The parish had set a limit of CHF 350,000 for the building costs. However, the cantonal court concluded that the architect could not fulfill the contract with this cost limitation. The architect should have recognized that the desired room program was most likely not feasible with the given resources. Instead, he continued to advance the project without informing the parish.
The plaintiff (architect) insisted that he had properly fulfilled the contract and was therefore entitled to the full fee. The Federal Supreme Court now had to decide whether the architect had executed the contract correctly and was entitled to the full fee.
Considerations
According to the Federal Supreme Court, the agent's paramount duty is to carefully and faithfully safeguard the principal's interests. If the agent is given an inappropriate or unenforceable instruction, he must inform the principal and obtain their opinion. As soon as the agent recognizes the inappropriateness or unenforcability of the instruction, he may not simply continue to execute the contract without informing the principal.
In the present case, the cantonal court assumed that the architect should have recognized long before submitting the construction…