Advance-Rumely Thresher Co. v. Bartzat

206 N.W. 7, 114 Neb. 35, 1925 Neb. LEXIS 18
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 18, 1925
DocketNo. 23852
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 206 N.W. 7 (Advance-Rumely Thresher Co. v. Bartzat) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Advance-Rumely Thresher Co. v. Bartzat, 206 N.W. 7, 114 Neb. 35, 1925 Neb. LEXIS 18 (Neb. 1925).

Opinion

Dean, J.

Plaintiff is a manufacturer and vendor of tractors, farm implements, and machinery, and maintains a branch agency at Lincoln. Defendant is a farmer and thresherman of 20 years’ experience and resides a few miles out of Lincoln. He bought a second-hand, rebuilt farm tractor from plaintiff, which is described as a “15-30 gas pull engine,” for which he executed a contract and four certain promissory notes for $200 each, bearing 8 per cent, yearly interest until-due and 10 per cent, thereafter. Defendant alleged failure of consideration,' and also that the notes were fraudulently obtained, and therefore, as alleged, he refused payment. In an action on the contract and notes, defendant recovered a verdict, and judgment thereon. Upon being nonsuited plaintiff appealed.

Thomas Helehan has been a salesman and agent in the employ of plaintiff for many years. From his evidence it appears that he “started the tractor for him (defendant), ran it around * * * for three or four blocks,” in Lincoln, defendant following along behind, and that, the tractor demonstration ending at the fourth city block, defendant announced his satisfaction, and informed the agent that the tractor suited him and thereupon signed and delivered the contract and the notes sued on, to plaintiff’s agents at its Lincoln office.

[37]*37Plaintiff, aside from its denial of the material evidence of defendant, relied on its printed form contract, and a typewritten insertion of an alleged waiver of warranty by defendant therein. The argument is that the transaction between the parties became and was a closed incident when the sale was made and the contract and the notes signed. It may be here noted, however, that plaintiff’s reliance was more particularly based on the typewritten recital, above referred to, which was inserted in the body of the contract and which reads:

“This is a second-hand tractor and is sold as such without warranty, as it stands at Lincoln, Nebraska.”

Defendant, however, testified that plaintiff’s agents, on some pretext, retained both duplicates of the contract, and that his copy subsequently came to him by mail, and not until then did he discover the insertion of the two lines of typewritten words therein, of which he now complains, and he contends that all except the words, “This is a secondhand tractor,” were inserted by some person after his signature was affixed thereto and wholly without his knowledge or consent. Plaintiff denied this imputation of unfair dealing, and insists that defendant’s copy of the contract was then and there handed to him and that it was never again in its possession.

On the part of defendant, evidence was submitted which tends to prove that plaintiff’s agents made to him certain oral representations which were material and upon which he relied, and that in reliance thereon he was induced to purchase the tractor and to execute the contract and the notes in suit. Among such representations, so made, it seems that the tractor, made by a corporation other than plaintiff, though a rebuilt machine, was nevertheless represented by the company’s authorized Lincoln agents to be in good working order, and it was orally guaranteed by them to have sufficient power, first, to pull a grain separator from place to place on the public .highway, and, second, to run a grain separator in the threshing season, and third, that the company would have on hand at its Lincoln agency [38]*38such repairs as were reasonably necessary to replace such breakages in the machine as might reasonably be expected to occur in this class of power machinery. And on this feature of the case there is competent evidence which tends to establish defendant’s contention that the foregoing material representations, guaranties, and promises, so made by plaintiff’s agents, were all unfulfilled, and that they were “breached” by the company in every material respect. We have uniformly held to the proposition that it is within the province of the jury to determine from the evidence whether the facts and circumstances are established which show that a buyer was justified in relying on the representations made by a seller and whether such representations were made to induce the sale or the exchange of properties, as the case may be. Sanders v. Nightengale, 109 Neb. 667. See, also, Realty Investment Co. v. Shafer, 91 Neb. 798.

That the tractor utterly failed to do the work for which it was made and for which it was purchased seems to have been well established and to the jury’s satisfaction. Only a few instances out of many will be noted which tend to show its material defects. When defendant started away from plaintiff’s branch agency to take the tractor to his farm home, under its own power, when a half mile from Lincoln, “it had some machinery break on it” and had to be returned to Lincoln for repairs, according to defendant’s evidence. That the tractor did not have power to move a separator on the highway nor to run a grain separator was a material fact established by the evidence. When breakages occurred, as frequently happened, plaintiff did not have the needed repairs on hand at Lincoln. In one instance there was a delay of about a week and in another of more than two weeks before repairs for the defective broken part could be obtained, and those happenings oc- ' curred from time to time while defendant was engaged in small grain threshing for his patrons, and to such an extent that he was compelled to hire another engine. And, besides, his occupation as a thresherman was shown to have been practically destroyed for the fall threshing season, at great [39]*39loss, because of the vitally material defects in the engine. And there were other like instances,' in which even much greater time was consumed by plaintiff in getting needed repairs, which need not be referred to herein. It need hardly be urged that defendant, as a thresherman, required a reasonably efficient power tractor, but the evidence, on defendant’s part, tends to prove that it was worthless for any purpose, and the jury were justified by the evidence in so believing.

Defendant cites, and seems to have relied on, section 8384, Comp. St. 1922, which provides:

“That every person, firm, association and corporation, or their agent, distributor, or dealer, who Is engaged in the sale, trade or exchange of automobiles or tractors within this state shall carry in stock, at some point within the state, all necessary supplies and repairs for such makes of automobiles or tractors as are sold by them within the state. That each and every sale, trade or disposition of any automobile or tractor by any such person, firm, association and corporation, or their agent, distributor or dealer, shall be void unless such stock of supplies and repairs are kept within this state, as herein provided.”

Plaintiff concedes that the foregoing act is both wholesome and beneficial and Is well designed to protect the public from the imposition of manufacturers of new machinery, but that it cannot properly be applied to “a bona fide sale of a second-hand machine, which as a new machine has once before been sold in all respects within the provisions, of the law.” Plaintiff, however, contends also that the act is not in harmony with the Constitution, and that it is therefore void. But we do not find it necessary to pass on the constitutionality of the act, for the reason that the act in question is not necessarily involved here.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
206 N.W. 7, 114 Neb. 35, 1925 Neb. LEXIS 18, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/advance-rumely-thresher-co-v-bartzat-neb-1925.