Litigating the Tower of Pisa fiasco
Marcel Strigberger.
I have always been interested in mistakes, also known as errors, blunders or, in my best legalese, boo-boos.
I am especially interested in historical iconic mistakes. I just read that the city of Bologna, Italy, has two towers, “le due torri,” both closed to visitors because they also are now leaning. Welcome to Pisa II. What gives?
I visualize the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Surely, it would not take legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright to notice that it was not rising according to plan. None of us would allow our houses to be built like that without at least emailing the builder at one point and saying, “I don’t know. When you get a chance, please drop by and have a look.”
I Googled to see if anybody had ever sued but saw nothing even remotely resembling The Municipality of Pisa v. the Tower Pros. Then again, maybe there actually was a lawsuit along these lines, perhaps unreported. I imagine the legal decision emanating from some district court judge might look as follows.
Justice Alto:
This is an action for breach of contract by the city-state of Pisa (“the plaintiff) against the Tower Pros, Inc. (“the contractor”).
Facts
In or about the year 1173, the plaintiff hired the contractor to construct a large tower about eight stories in height in Pisa’s main square next to the cattedrale. It was a term of the contract that the tower be of good workmanship and be fully functional, as a campanile, i.e., a bell tower, within one year. The contractor’s principal, Mario di Genoa, assured the plaintiff that the job would be completed in one year “as sure as the world was flat.” The city’s eager mayor, Paolo Pisano, proudly announced at the groundbreaking ceremony, “This tower will be great for our economy, attracting thousands of visitors annually.”
Unfortunately, the tower was not completed until 1372. Even worse, rather than being straight, it ended up leaning about 5 degrees—or about 4.5 meters—off perpendicular.
The court heard from a number of witnesses and also considered evidence from depositions and other writings from people no longer around.
I note that His Worship Paolo Pisano noticed after about year one that construction consisted only of the digging of a few spades of earth. He sent a messenger to di Genoa querying the apparent slow rate of construction. Di Genoa’s response was that he was busy doing some minor renovations at the Coliseum in Rome, and he would resume working on the tower in Pisa on the following Tuesday.
The two main issues in this case are delay in completion of the work and quality of workmanship.
Delay
The contractor argues that any delays were not the company’s fault.
It claims that its chief architect, Antonio Grande, suffered a nasty accident as he fell off the scaffolding, resulting in major delays. It was not an uncommon occurrence for architects to fall off scaffolding. But the court notes from the archival records that at that point, the scaffolding was only about 1 meter high. I reject the argument that for years the architect was unable to resume his duties due to an alleged disability of post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by a fear of heights. I find this argument to be a crock of bologna.
The defendant further pleads that the construction project was hampered by frequent wars between the city- states, including Siena, Lucca and Firenze. It alleges that there was no sense in trying to build a tower only to have some hordes come by and knock it over.
In my view, the war excuse is mere speculation. True, workers were in short supply due to being conscripted, but I find the contractor did not do enough to address the problems. In fact, about 70 years before completing construction, it placed a sign at the tower’s entrance reading, “Not hiring now.”
The contractor further pleads that the project suffered delays due to the Great Plague. Its current principal claims that many of its workers refused to show up for work. He argues that the head of the mason’s guild, Mauricio di Milano said, “No way my men are going near that tower. Did you see those black blotches on the foreman’s face?”
I take judicial notice that hardly a century goes by in Europe without the continent being visited by a plague. In one century alone, we all got hit with many strains of Bubonic, including Alpha, Beta and the most severe, Parmigiana.
I accept the plague as a reason to cut some slack for the defendant taking a bit more time than one year to complete the project.
Which gets us to the problem of the leaning tower.
Workmanship
The plaintiff alleges that the tower is off perpendicular by 5 degrees. It says thousands of people have been flocking to Pisa in the past few years, and they all laugh at and ridicule the tower. The mayor says he has received dozens of letters from people offering to sell his city the Venetian Rialto Bridge.
The defendant argues that the plaintiff condoned the tower’s looks, taking about 200 years to start this court action. It testified that after the tower was about two stories high, it leaned a bit, resulting in the designated bell ringer, Marco de Medici to say, “Hey, I’m not climbing up this thing until you straighten it out.”
The mayor and his councilmen claimed they would look at the tower under construction occasionally when they came out of the neighboring tavern, and it looked straight to them.
Regardless of whether there was some condonation, the defendant argues that any claims are barred given the expiry of limitation periods. Section 3 of the Limitations Act notes:
“Parties have two years to initiate any claims for road accidents, medical malpractice and construction of faulty towers.”
I find that the plaintiff is caught by this statute because it was dilatory in commencing this action.
The case is dismissed. Counsel have 14 days to provide written argument for legal costs. Please do hurry; the courts may close down because there is a rumor that we are about to be attacked by the Duke of Verona. A plague on him.
Marcel Strigberger, after 40-plus years of practicing civil litigation in the Toronto area, closed his law office and decided to continue his humor writing and speaking passions. His latest book is First, Let’s Kill the Lawyer Jokes: An Attorney’s Irreverent Serious Look at the Legal Universe. Visit MarcelsHumour.com, and follow him at @MarcelsHumour on X, formerly known as Twitter.
This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.
