Montana Attorney General Opinion 15-568

Opinion No. 568 County Printing-Contracts, Sub-Let- ting-Contt-acts, Assignment. HEI~D: Lnder Section 1, Chapter 10, Laws of IH2H, a newspaper is not only permitted but is posith'ely commanded to sublet in the e\'ent it should not be ahle to execute any part of the con- tTIH:t for county printing. Printing contracts for county print- in:.; cannot be assigned. A new agreement or contract is not required by the statute where the printing contract is so suh-Iet, and· will be unnecessar~' unless required by the original contract. ,July 7, 1934. You ha\'e reque~ted an opinion as to whether or not Lewis and Clark Coun- tv is to continue its cont.ract with the Helena I ndependent for county print- ing, it appearing that hecause of a stl:ike, the Independent is unable to furnish the printing from its own plant but must. sub-let or procnre the prin ting elsewhere. The following sentence, found at the end of Section 1, Chapter 10, Laws of 192!), is so clear tha t we do not see how anyone reading it can mistake its intent: "All newspapers which' may re- cei ve any contract for printing under this act, and which lllay not be able to execute any part of such contract, shall be l'equil'ed to sub-let such contract or portion of contract to some newspaper or printing establishment within the f;tate, which shall do the work under contract so sub-let entirely within the state with Montana labor." ] t would appear that the legislature not only intended to permit a newspaper to sub- let but positively commanded it to do so in the event it should not he able to execute any part of the contract.' Your second inquil-y raises the ques- tion whether or not the contracting newspaper may assign the balance of the contract to some other printing concern, or whether they can hire some other concern to perform the balance of said contract. Wc think the contract cannot be as- signed. The statute commands that such work must be sub-let. There is a hroad distinction between sub-letting and assigning. 'Ve quote the follow- ing to indicate briefly what this dis- tinction is: ""Where a contractor sub- lets the whole or a part of the labor to be performed by him the party with whom he contracts is deSignated a sub- contractor." (30 American and English Encyclopedia of Law, 2nd Ed. 1195.) "Unless expressly restricted by the terms of the contract the builder is not necessarily required personally to perform the work but may sublet it." (9 C. J. 735.) "In the absence of an pxpress contract making the owner li- able, the compensation of persons who perform labor for. or furnish materials to, t.he builder who has undertaken to perform the work is generally to be paid by such builder, and not hy the owner, * * *." (!) C. J. 835.) Next you inquire whether or not thc person to whom the work is sub-let must. enter into a new agreement with the county. The statute does not re- quire it and we assume, since you failed to say that the contract required it, that the contract itself makes no mention of the matter. The rule is well settled that in cases of contracts of this general nature the contractor need not secure the consent of the other party in order to sub-let the whole or a portion of his contract.