American Sand & Gravel Co. v. Chicago Gravel Co.

184 Ill. App. 509, 1914 Ill. App. LEXIS 1214
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedJanuary 13, 1914
DocketGen. No. 18,879
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 184 Ill. App. 509 (American Sand & Gravel Co. v. Chicago Gravel Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
American Sand & Gravel Co. v. Chicago Gravel Co., 184 Ill. App. 509, 1914 Ill. App. LEXIS 1214 (Ill. Ct. App. 1914).

Opinion

Mr. Presiding Justice Smith

delivered the opinion of the court.

Appellee, American Sand & Gravel Company, a corporation, filed its bill in the Superior Court of Cook county against appellants, Chicago Gravel Company and Joliet Sand and Gravel Company. Upon answers filed and the report of a. master the court entered a decree substantially in accordance with the recommendation of the master, enjoining the appellants from selling any washed products prepared from sand and gravel mined and excavated from any or either of flip gravel pits located on the premises known as the Gilbert, Hammond, Gifford and Hillsdale properties, or from any pits that were then and might be thereafter opened on any land owned or controlled by the Chicago Gravel Company, at any time during the life of a certain agreement dated August 10, 1905, for use within Cook county, to any one other 'than the complainant in the bill, except for use at points along the lines of the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway and the Chicago, Lake Shore & Eastern Railway, as said respective railways were located on August 10,1905, and referring the cause to a master to take an accounting of the damages sustained by complainant by reason of the violation of a negative covenant contained in the contract of August 10, 1905. From that decree appellants prosecute this appeal, and have separately assigned errors upon the record.

There is no substantial controverted question of fact in the case. Appellants present their ease in this court upon questions of law mainly arising upon the contract and the assignment or transfer thereof, which formed the basis of the relations between the parties to the suit.

It substantially appears from the bill and the evidence that on June 15, 1905, a contract was entered into between one Louisa Gilbert and Sebastian Krug, by which Krug acquired the exclusive right to excavate and remove sand and gravel from a tract of land situated near Elgin, in Kane county, Illinois, during a period of fifteen years from June 15, 1905. July 15, 1905, the American Sand & Gravel Company, appellee, entered into a contract with Krug, under which appellee became possessed of the exclusive rights conferred by said first mentioned contract for the period of fourteen years and ten months from July 15, 1905. On August 10, 1905, appellee entered into a contract with appellant Chicago Gravel Company, by the terms of which the Chicago Gravel Company was granted the exclusive right to excavate and remove sand and gravel from the Gilbert land for a period of fourteen years and nine months from said tenth day of August, 1905.

At the time of the making of said last mentioned contract, the Chicago Gravel Company owned or controlled a large amount of other lands containing deposit of sand and gravel. Under the contract between Louisa Gilbert and Krug and the contract between Krug and appellee, appellee was required to erect certain machinery on the gravel land for the purpose of mining or excavating the sand and gravel, and washing, cleaning and preparing the same for the market. This would involve the expenditure of a considerable sum of money by appellee, and as said Chicago Gravel Company owned a washing and screening plant adjacent to the Gilbert land and was operating the same at the time of the making of the contracts above mentioned, in order to avoid the expenditure required to be made under the Gilbert contract, a supplemental agreement was entered into between Louisa Gilbert and Krug, whereby the Gilbert contract was modified so as to permit the letting of the gravel land by Krug, and this supplemental contract also contained a provision waiving the requirement that a washing and screening plant should be erected on the Gilbert land, so as to enable the Chicago Gravel Company to prepare the product from the Gilbert land for the market by means of the plant which that company then had in operation adjacent to the Gilbert land.

In the fourth paragraph of the contract between the Chicago Gravel Company and appellee, complainant below, it was provided that the Chicago Gravel Company should supply appellee with not less than fifteen carloads per day of its washed products during each and every day, Sundays and holidays excepted, beginning with April 1st and ending December 1st in each year during said term of fourteen years and nine months, weather conditions permitting, and not to exceed twenty-five carloads per day during the period. The contract provided that it should be optional with appellee whether it would accept and receive from the Chicago Gravel Company any more than fifteen carloads of said product per day. The contract further provided that strikes, lockouts, interruptions to transportation, lack of cars, accidents and other causes beyond the control of the Chicago Gravel Company should excuse compliance with the terms of the contract while such condition continued; but provided further that in case of lack of cars appellee should be entitled to at least seventy-five per cent, of the available car supply. The fourth paragraph of the contract also contained the following provision:

“It is further expressly understood and agreed that the said party of the second part (Chicago Gravel Company) shall not ship to any person, firm or corporation within Cook County, Illinois, other than said party of the first part (American Sand & Gravel Company, appellee) any of its washed products, and will not, after the first day of January, 1906, sell any of its washed products within said County of Cook except to said party of the first part, provided, however, that said party of the second part shall have the right to ship so much of said material as may be required to complete its present contract for the elevation of the tracks of the Chicago Junction Railway; it being hereby intended that said party of the first part shall have the exclusive right, within the County of Cook aforesaid, to all the washed product of gravel pits owned or controlled by said party of the second part; and that said party of the second part shall not sell the washed product of any of its gravel pits for use within said County of Cook to any other person, firm or corporation: Provided, however, that said party of the second part shall have the right to ship product from its said gravel pits along the lines of the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway and the Chicago, Lake Shore & Eastern Railway, as said respective railways are at present located.”

Upon the execution of the last mentioned contract, possession of the Gilbert land was delivered to the Chicago Gravel Company and the latter proceeded to make preparations for and entered upon the performance of the contract. During the season of 1907, the Chicago Gravel Company was unable for various reasons to furnish to appellee all of the sand and gravel to which it was entitled under the terms of the contract, but appellee took from the Chicago Gravel Company all the material it could get. During the season of 1908, the Chicago Gravel Company offered to appellee the fifteen carloads of product required under the terms of the contract, but appellee was unable to accept the full amount. Shipments, however, were made from time to time, all orders given being accepted by the Chicago Gravel Company and all material shipped to appellee was paid for according to the terms of the contract.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
184 Ill. App. 509, 1914 Ill. App. LEXIS 1214, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/american-sand-gravel-co-v-chicago-gravel-co-illappct-1914.