Brinn v. Harry Hindlemann, Inc.

199 A.D. 329, 192 N.Y.S. 34, 1922 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 8017
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedJanuary 13, 1922
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 199 A.D. 329 (Brinn v. Harry Hindlemann, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brinn v. Harry Hindlemann, Inc., 199 A.D. 329, 192 N.Y.S. 34, 1922 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 8017 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1922).

Opinion

Laughlin, J.:

This is an action to recover $3,595.21, the balance owing on the purchase" price of twenty-six pieces of green flannel woolen goods for men’s suits, which the plaintiffs sold and delivered to the defendant on August 1, 1919. There is no controversy with respect to the salé and delivery .of the goods or the agreed purchase price or the balance unpaid thereon. The principal point presented for decision is with respect to whether the interposition by the defendant of a counterclaim and a recovery thereon in an action brought against it by the plaintiffs in the Municipal Court in the Borough of Bronx on the 19th of December, 1919, barred a recovery by it on "the counterclaim herein. That action was to recover for the purchase price of two pieces of like goods sold and delivered by the plaintiffs to the defendant on the 12th of August, 1919. On the 2d and 22d of September, 1919, plaintiffs also sold [331]*331and delivered to the defendant thirty-four and eleven pieces, respectively, of the same kind of goods. This action to recover on the first of the four contracts of purchase and sale was commenced on the 6th of December, 1919, and the Municipal Court action to recover on the second contract was commenced thirteen days later or on the nineteenth of the same month. A third action subsequently brought in the Supreme Court by the plaintiffs against the defendant to recover on the third and fourth contracts is still pending. ’ In accordance with the custom of the business and in order that the goods might be examined and shrunk preparatory to making them up into suits, plaintiffs by direction of the defendant made all deliveries to the Peerless Cloth Examining, Shrinking and Refinishing Works in the borough of Manhattan, New York. It was also a custom of the business for the examiners and shrinkers to accept for the purchaser goods found to conform to the contract, and to reject any of the goods found to be defective, and give notice thereof to the seller and to the buyer, and to notify the seller that they were held subject to his order, and then the seller would either send for the goods or arrange with the examiners and shrinkers for their return tó him. In accordance with this custom, on the fourth of August, the shrinkers rejected six of the pieces covered by the first contract, as defective, and they retained the six pieces which they rejected and gave the customary notice with respect thereto and delivered the other twenty pieces to the defendant. It is fairly to be inferred from the evidence that the same course was pursued with respect to each of the other three deliveries'of goods; but, doubtless owing to the fact that they were not directly involved, the facts with respect thereto were not shown in detail. One or more pieces of each delivery, aggregating thirty-four in all under the four contracts, were so found by the examiners and shrinkers to be defective, and were retained by them, and the other pieces were accepted and delivered to the defendant. The president of the defendant testified that the plaintiff Louis Brinn repeatedly called on him after the rejection of some of the-pieces of goods by the examiners and shrinkers, and requested him to go to the examiners and shrinkers to examine the rejected goods, which he refused to do on the ground that the defendant could not [332]*332use them; and on or about the 15th of October, 1919, which was after the rejection by the examiners and shrinkers of the thirty-four pieces of goods, said Brinn came to the defendant’s place of business and assured him that the “ washer streaks ” in the goods, on account of which the examiners and shrinkers rejected them, would come out on pressing the goods after they were made up into suits, and as an inducement to the defendant to accept and make up the goods, agreed that, if the defendant would accept them and make them up into suits and the “ washer streaks ” did not come out, plaintiffs would make good the defendant’s loss; that on this assurance the defendant ordered the goods delivered to it and had them made up into suits, but that the “ washer streaks ” did not come out on the suits being pressed, and the defendant sold the suits on the 12th of January, 1920, at ten dollars and fifty cents per suit after they had been rejected by a purchaser in Nashville, Tenn., to whom defendant had contracted to sell them for twenty-two dollars and fifty cents per suit at or about the time it contracted with the plaintiffs for the purchase of the goods, and that said Brinn, before so inducing the defendant to accept the goods, was informed that such contract had been made, and that the defendant believed that its purchaser would not accept the suits so to be made up. Testimony was also given on behalf of the defendant by three witnesses to the effect that after the trousers had been made up, but before the coats had been returned by the defendant’s tailors, it was discovered that the “ washer streaks,” also called creases, had not disappeared, and said Brinn, one of the plaintiffs, was summoned and they were shown to him, and defendant’s president expressed reluctance to ship the suits to its customer at Nashville lest they might be returned and it might lose its customer, but was urged by Brinn to ship them and was assured, in effect, that the plaintiffs would make good any loss resulting to defendant therefrom. The thirty-four defective pieces made 748 suits, and the defendant shipped to its customer at Nashville 195 of them, and they were all rejected and returned with the exception of some that were lost in transit.

It thus plainly appears that, prior to the commencement of any of the three actions for the recovery of the purchase [333]*333price of the goods sold by the plaintiffs to the defendant under the four contracts, defendant’s damages, on the theory of a breach of an expressed or implied warranty with respect to the quality of the goods, had accrued and were known to the defendant; and that its damages for a breach of the parol agreement under which it accepted the delivery of the thirty-four defective pieces and made them into suits on the assurance of the plaintiffs that they would make good its loss if the defects did not disappear, at least, damages predicated upon the difference between the market value of the suits made up of the defective goods and their market value if the goods had not been defective, had also accrued prior to the commencement of any of the actions.

The pleadings in the Municipal Court action were informal. Plaintiffs claimed for goods sold and delivered, and the answer was General denial, breach of contract, breach of warranty,” and at the opening of the trial defendant was allowed to amend its answer by setting up a counterclaim for $200. For a bill of particulars with respect to its counterclaim defendant stated orally as follows: The damage was sustained by reason of the making up of garments from that one piece of merchandise aggregating twenty suits and the loss of ten dollars on each suit. * * * There were twenty garments made up from one of the pieces of cloth in this suit and that these twenty suits by reason of defects, breach of warranty, it is claimed by the defendant that the defendant suffered damage or loss of ten dollars on each and every suit and this aggregates twenty times ten, making a sum total of two hundred dollars.” It will be observed from this that the counterclaim in the Municipal Court action, which was brought for the purchase price of two pieces, was for damages owing to one of the pieces being defective.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
199 A.D. 329, 192 N.Y.S. 34, 1922 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 8017, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brinn-v-harry-hindlemann-inc-nyappdiv-1922.