CACI No. 4524

Contract—Substantial Performance

[Name of defendant] claims that [name of plaintiff] did not fully perform

all of the things that [he/she/ nonbinary pronoun/it] was required to do

under the [terms of the contract/plans and specifications], and therefore

[name of defendant] did not have to [specify owner’ s obligations under the

contract, e.g., pay the contract balance]. [Name of plaintiff] claims that [he/

she/nonbinary pronoun/it] did substantially all of the things required of

[him/her/nonbinary pronoun/it] under the contract.

To succeed, [name of plaintiff] must prove all of the following:

1. That [name of plaintiff] made a good-faith effort to comply with

the terms of the contract and did not willfully depart from them;

2. That [name of plaintiff] did not omit any essential requirement in

the contract; and

3. That the [name of defendant] received essentially what the contract

called for because [name of plaintiff]’s failures, if any, were so

trivial that they could have been easily fixed.

If you find that [name of plaintiff] substantially performed the contract,

the cost of completing unfinished work must be deducted from the

contract price.

New December 2010