Franks v. Jirdon

14 N.W.2d 372, 144 Neb. 693, 1944 Neb. LEXIS 81
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedMay 5, 1944
DocketNo. 31597
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 14 N.W.2d 372 (Franks v. Jirdon) 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
Franks v. Jirdon, 14 N.W.2d 372, 144 Neb. 693, 1944 Neb. LEXIS 81 (Neb. 1944).

Opinion

Paine, J.

Plaintiff brought an action at law for $2,305.70 balance due from defendant on purchase of potatoes. At the close of the evidence the trial court instructed the jury to return a verdict for the defendants, from which plaintiff appeals.

In the amended petition plaintiff brought suit against John R. Jirdon, Theodore Currier and three others, doing business as an unincorporated association, for the balance due on an oral contract to buy certain potatoes. It is alleged that on March 1, 1942, plaintiff by this verbal agreement sold Theodore Currier, who was acting for the said association, which was doing business under the trade name of “John R. Jirdon Potato Division,” all of the potatoes contained in 14 bins of potatoes in his potato cave south of [695]*695Lingle, in Goshen county, Wyoming, for the agreed price of $1.45 per cwt. for all salable potatoes; that under the terms of the agreement all of the .potatoes were to be run over a 144-inch potato screen, and that all rots., cuts and greenheads were to be discarded; that this processing, removal and hauling- of the potatoes were all to be done by the defendants at their expense; that within two weeks of said date defendants took the potatoes from where they were stored. Plaintiff claims that there were in excess of 5,965 cwt. of marketable potatoes; that plaintiff was given no opportunity to. count the number of bags removed, or to weigh or measure them before defendants mingled them with potatoes purchased from other sellers, whereby the potatoes of plaintiff lost their identity, and plaintiff denies that the defendants weighed all the potatoes.

Plaintiff charges that in processing' these potatoes they should have been run over a 144-inch potato screen, but instead they were run over a 1 7/8-inch screen several times, which made it appear that the salable potatoes were much less than the bins actually contained. Plaintiff admits that defendants paid the sum of $6,343.55 during the time the potatoes were being processed, and that there is a balance due and owing of $2,305.70, which defendants refuse to pay.

The defendants for answer admit that they are an unincorporated association, engaged in the wholesale handling of potatoes, admit that they made the contract to buy potatoes in the cave of plaintiff in Wyoming, admit that they received the .potatoes; deny that there were 5,965 cwt. of marketable potatoes in the 14 bins of potatoes, which they purchased after discarding all small potatoes which passed through a 144-inch potato, screen and all rots, cuts and greenheads; deny that plaintiff had no opportunity to check the quantity of potatoes removed, and allege that they properly processed the said potatoes, and that it was agreed that the term “hundredweight” of potatoes should mean a sack of potatoes weighing 101 pounds including the sack, and allege that they paid $6,343.55, which was the full purchase [696]*696price for all of said potatoes purchased by them under their contract. The reply was a general denial.

The principal assignment of error charged that the court erred in withdrawing the case from the jury and sustaining defendants’ motion for a directed verdict. As this assignment involves the questions of fact, we will briefly review the evidence.

The plaintiff testified that he had long been engaged in raising potatoes, and had averaged 50,000 bushels a year; that one of his farms was in the state of Wyoming, and that the potatoes from that farm were stored in a potato cellar about 80' feet long, with a driveway through the middle of it, and the bins are 15' feet wide. The walls were all the same size, so that one bin board would fit any bin in the cellar. In the fall of 1941 the bins were filled with potatoes and absolutely level, by being hand dressed on the top after they were filled to make them all level. The potatoes were extremely sound and good; there had been no frost that season, and they were of a uniform, medium size. The planks of the trucks, as they transported them to the bin, were padded with sacks to avoid bruising the potatoes, and the potatoes had settled in the bin about nine inches.

He testified there was a four-acre tract in one of the fields that was- inclined to be “seepy” where the potatoes were watered too heavily, and these potatoes carried some dirt. He said the agreement when he sold them was that they should go over an inch and a half screen, cuts-, rots and greenheads out, and that defendant Currier said, “I will give you $1.50 over an inch and seven-eighths screen, and I will give $1.45 over an inch and a half screen,” and the plaintiff accepted the offer of $1.45- per cwt. over a 1%-inch screen, with cuts, rots and greenheads out; that when plaintiff went out to the potato cellar a day or so- later he objected to their sorting them over a 1 7/8-inch screen, and defendant Currier said that he would make the necessary adjustments. Plaintiff testified that as they were running them out the potatoes were sound and had very few sprouts and would roll of their own accord.

[697]*697The plaintiff testified that the ten bins on the north side were 79.66 feet long and 14.66 feet wide, and the potatoes in the bin were 9.4 feet high. On the south side there were three bins 24.16 feet long and 14.66 feet wide and nine feet high, making a total of 14,162.46 cubic feet of potatoes sold to the defendants, and this includes 90 sacks, that were in the 14th bin, and 1.34 cubic feet of these particular potatoes would produce a bushel, or 60 pounds, of potatoes, making due allowance for their passing over a ll/2-inch screen, with cuts, rots and greenheads out.

According to the plaintiff’s estimate,' there were 5,965 cwt. of potatoes sold, at $1.45 a cwt. This would give a total value of $8,649.25, upon which the defendants paid $6,-343.55, leaving a balance of $2,305.70, for which suit was brought.

After the plaintiff had determined that there was a shortage, he was asked: “Q. What, if anything, was said by Mr. Currier, to you after you done your figuring? A. He said that we were short. He was short and way short and wondered where they were. They were gone, but where were they ? Q. I will ask you if Mr. Currier said anything to you about using the volume and what you got out of the six bins that you kept as a check against this? A. He did.”

Jake Steben testified he was the plaintiff’s foreman, and was living- on the farm of plaintiff, and with the help of the hired man had grown about 51 acres of the potatoes which went into this cave on this place, and that they were pretty nice potatoes. He testified he went down the first afternoon after the crew was there; they were using a power sorter, as there was electric current at the cave, and that he was there at the cave once or twice a day all the time the potatoes were being processed by the defendants’ crew. He did not see but very few sprouts on the potatoes, and only the potatoes in the three west bins carried any dirt, and in the rest of the bins there was no dirt on them.

Mr. Steben testified that he heard the conversation out there between plaintiff and Currier. “Q. Tell the jury what was said? A. Well, Jim told him that there was too many [698]*698potatoes thrown out that wasn’t necessary and Ted admitted it, that there were.” They counted all the sacks that had been filled, and there were 1,282 sacks run over the 1 7/8-inch screen and the drops which had come from the first three bins.

Mr.

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Related

Franks v. Jirdon
20 N.W.2d 597 (Nebraska Supreme Court, 1945)
Goodhart v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad
19 N.W.2d 549 (Nebraska Supreme Court, 1945)

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Bluebook (online)
14 N.W.2d 372, 144 Neb. 693, 1944 Neb. LEXIS 81, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/franks-v-jirdon-neb-1944.