Consolidated Fuel Co. v. Gunn

1923 OK 71, 213 P. 750, 89 Okla. 73, 1923 Okla. LEXIS 991
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedFebruary 6, 1923
Docket10925
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 1923 OK 71 (Consolidated Fuel Co. v. Gunn) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Consolidated Fuel Co. v. Gunn, 1923 OK 71, 213 P. 750, 89 Okla. 73, 1923 Okla. LEXIS 991 (Okla. 1923).

Opinion

IÍENNAMER, .f.

C. 13. Gunn, .plaintiff, was awarded $2,000 damages from the Consolidated Fuel Company, defendant, in an action in the district court of Canadian county for the breach of a contract .for the sale of 60 cars of coal. ' The 'Consolidated Fuel Company prosecutes ;tb(is appeal to reverse the judgment of the trial court. The judgment in favor of the plaintiff for $2,000 was entered upon the verdict of the jury finding in favor of the plaintiff. The parties will be referred to as plaintiff and defendant, as they appeared in the trial court).

The material facts necessary to be considered in determining this appeal are briefly stated as follows: The defendant is a domestic corporation with its principal place of business in the city .of Muskogee. C. E. Gunn, the plaintiff, is a retail merchant. in the city oí El Reno, and was engaged in such business on April 8, 19H6. On this date a traveling salesman of the defendant company obtained from the plaintiff an order to the defendant company for 60 cars of coal to be shipped to the plaintiff during fh.e winter season of 1916-17; 50 cars of the coal to be Dewar domestic lump at $3 per ton and ten cars to be 21,-2 domestic nut at $2.50 per ton. The order for the coal was by letter written from its home office in Muskogee by the defendant com- ■ pany on April 10, 1916, approved. The order and letter of confirmation were attached to the plaintiff’s petition, and it was alleged that the order and confirmation bound the defendant company to deliver to the plaintiff, or his order, the 60 cars of coal upon demand at any time before the 1st day of April, 1917. It was provided in the order for the coal that it was sold f. o. b. mines. The mines of the defendant were located in Okmulgee county.

The ground of the plaintiff’s cause of action, as alleged in his petition, was the breach of the contract by the defendant in failing to deliver the coal.

.The defendant, on May 7, 1917, specially appearing, filed a motion (o quash the summons and service thereon. The motion to quash the summons and service thereon was . overruled and exceptions allowed, and the overruling of the motion is assigned as error on. this appeal.

' An examination of the record in the case discloses that the defendant is a' domestic corporation organized under the laws Of the state' of Oklahoma,' with its principal place .of. business in the city of Muskogee, and (hat the summons was served upon the president of the company in Muskogee county. The petition filed by the plaintiff and the evidence introduced in support of the motion to quash the summons conclusively show that the contract for the sale of the coal was completed and made in Muskogee county. That the breach of contract for the delivery of the coal, if any, occurred in Okmulgee county, where the mines of the •defendant company are located. The plaintiff in order to fix the venue of the action in Canadian county relies upon the act of the Legislature of March 22, 1913, Session Laws 1913,; p. 133, section 202, Comp. Stats. 1921, which reads as follows:

“An action, other than one of those mentioned in first three sections of this article, against a corporation created by the laws of this state, may be brought in the county in which it is situated, or has its principal office or place of business, or in which any of the principal officers thereof may reside, or be summoned, or in the county where the cause of action or some part thereof arose.”

It is argued by counsel for the plaintiff that under the statute, supra, the plaintiff, having signed the order for the coal in Canadian county, that part of his cause of action arose in that county, and that the suir was properly instituted in said county. We are unable to agree with counsel in this contention, and under the admitted facts it is our conclusion that no part of the cause of action arose in Canadian county, and the proper venue of the action was either in Muskogee county, where the defendant company has its principal officé or place of business, or in Okmulgee county, where the defendant company breached the contract by failing to deliver the coal f. o. b. the ears as provided for in the order, if there was a breach of the contract. The orden* given, to the traveling salesman of the defendant company did not constitute a contract or bind either party until approved by the defendant company, which was done in Muskogee couniy. The reason the order did not constitute a contract until approved is that it lacked the essential element to constitute a contract of mutual assent; such an order until approved amounted to no more than an offer or proposal on the part of the plaintiff to the defendant. 3. S. Owens Company v. Bemis et al. (N. D.) 133 N. W. 59, 37 L. R. A. (N. S.) 232; Bauman v. McManus (Kan.) 89 Pac. 15; Gould v. Gates Chair Company, 147 Ala. 629, 41 South. 675.

*75 The general rule is that a contract is deemed to be made at the place where the final assent is given. 23 R. C. L. see. 69; Josey v. State: 88 Ark. 269, 114 S. W. 216, 44 L. R. A. (N. S.) 463; Ward Lbr. Co. v. American Lbr. Co., 247 Pa. 267, 93 Atl. 470, 64 L. R. A. 824; Denison et al. v. Phipps, 87 Okla. 299, 211 Pac. 83.

It is plain under the authorities considered that the contract was made in Muskogee county. It was in that county that the final assent was given and the negotiations between parties became an effective agreement. It was there that the primary right of the plaintiff came into existence and tiie duty and obligations of the defendant became fixed toward the plaintiff. In Pome-roy on Code Remedies, see. 453, the term “cause of action” is defined to be:

“A primary right possessed by the plaintiff and a corresponding primary duty, devolving upon t.liie defendant; a delict or wrong done by the defendant which' consisted in a breach of such primary right and duty: a remedial right in favor of the plaintiff and a remedial duty resting on the defendant springing from delict; and finally, the remedy or relief itself. Every action, however complicated or however simple, must contain these essential elements. Of these elements, the primary right and duty and the delict or wrong combined constitute the cause of action. * * *”

In the case of Oklahoma Fire Insurance Co. v. Simple, 57 Okla. 398, 156 Pac. 301, in construing section 4674, Revised Laws 1910. providing that an action against a domestic insurance company may be brought in. the county where the cause of action or some part thereof arose, in defining a cause of action this court quoted with approval the following authorities:

In the case of Jackson v. Spitial, 5 L. R. C. P., p. 542, it is said.

“A cause of action was said to arise in that jurisdiction where the not is done which gives the plaintiff his cause of complaint.”

And in Durham v. Spence, 6 L. R. E. 46, it was said by Pigott, B.:

“I understand by ‘cause of action’ that which creates the necessity for bringing the action. No doubt, to make the act or omission complained of the cause of action, a contract must have preceded; and so also a negotiation must have preceded the making of the contract. Yet I should not include in the expression ‘cause of action’ that negotiation nor any of the other circumstances that might form part of the necessary evidence in the cause as the groundwork of (he cause of complaint, but only the cause of complaint itself; that is, the breach,

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1923 OK 71, 213 P. 750, 89 Okla. 73, 1923 Okla. LEXIS 991, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/consolidated-fuel-co-v-gunn-okla-1923.