Henderson Tire & Rubber Co. v. Roberts

12 S.W.2d 154
Texas Commission of Appeals·Decided January 9, 1929·No. No. 1142—5093·Published·Cited by 15 cases

Opinion

CRITZ, J.

This suit was originally instituted in the district court of Dallas county by Henderson Tire & Rubber Company, a foreign corporation, engaged in the manufacture and sale of automobile tires and tubes, against L. E. Roberts & Co., a trust estate, and undoubtedly a partnership, which was engaged in the business of buying and selling automobile tires arid tubes. Henderson Tire & Rubber Company also sued L. E. Roberts, A. J. Roberts, J. A. Watson, and D. C. Walling, individually, and Weldon Rubber Company, alleging said L. E. Roberta & Co. to be a partnership, and also sued these individuals as guarantors of a certain contract, and acceptors of certain trade acceptances. The suit as brought is based on the certain trade acceptances and a certain written guaranty, which was a part of a certain contract of date November 7,1921. The defendants in the trial court answered and, among other things, pleaded that Henderson Tire & Rubber Company could not recover on its alleged course of action because the same violated articles 7426, 7427, 7428, 7429,' and 7437, Re-, vised Civil Statutes of Texas 1925, known as the “Anti-Trust Statutes of Texas.” At the close of the testimony the trial court directed a verdict for defendants in the trial court. This verdict was returned by the jury hnd judgment entered accordingly. The case was duly appealed to the Court of Civil Appeals for the Eighth District, at Dallas, which court affirmed, the judgment of the trial court. 1 S.W.(2d) 510. The case is now before this court on writ of error granted on [155] application of Henderson Tire & Rubber Company. Such further statement of the case as is necessary will appear in the course of this opinion.

We hereafter refer to Henderson Tire & Rubber Company, plaintiff in error, as plaintiff, and to the'other parties as defendants.

By its first assignment of error, plaintiff contends in effect that since the contract in Question is a consignment contract and not a sales contract, ft is entitled to recover the price of the tires in question. In other words, plaintiff contends that the contract, being a pure consignment contract, is valid, legal, and enforceable, because it concerns interstate commerce, and therefore does not come under the provisions of the Texas AntiTrust Act; and, further, plaintiff contends that the tires sued on herein were sold on October 24, 1924, prior to the mating of the contract of November 7, 1921, and were not sold under or affected by the contract of November 7,1921.

We agree with the contention of plaintiff that, so far as interstate shipments are concerned, “it is well settled that obligations arising out of agency contracts between consignors and consignees, giving the consignee exclusive right of sale within a designated territory, and the consignee agreeing to carry no stock, and not to advertise, and not to sell the goods of any other manufacturer, are enforceable under the laws of this State.” Stein Double Cushion Tire Co. v. Fulton et al. (Tex. Civ. App.) 159 S. W. 1013 (writ of error refused); Falls Rubber Co. v. La Pon et al. (Tex. Com. App.) 256 S. W. 577; Milburn Manufacturing Co. v. Peak, 89 Tex. 209, 34 S. W. 102.

The effect of the opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals in the case at bar is to hold that the provisions of the contract of November 7, 1921, apply, as an outright sale, and not as a consignment, of the tires, the consideration for which is sued on herein, and such holding is certainly amply and conclusively shown by the uncontradieted pleadings and evidence of the plaintiff itself. The effect of the opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals is further to hold that the provisions of said contract of November 7, 1921, as applied to an outright sale, is in violation of the laws of this state against monopolies. We think the Court of Civil Appeals was correct in this holding.

The salient features of the contract of date November 7, 1921, a.re set out in the opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals and will not be repeated here, but we call attention to the fact that said contract grants to L. 13. Roberts & Co. the exclusive right to sell, during the term of the contract, Eclipse cord and fabric tires in certain defined and restricted territory in this state, and in consideration of the granting of the exclusive territory by the plaintiff, Roberts Company-agreed to sell said Eclipse tires exclusively in said defined and restricted territory during the -continuance of the contract, and said Roberts Company further agreed during the continuance of said contract not to sell, carry in stock, or advertise tires of any other manufacturer. As applied to an outright sale, such an agreement is a trust, and a conspiracy in restraint of trade, under the laws of this state. Rev. Civ. Stat. Texas, arts. 7426 and 7428; American Brewing Ass’n v. Woods (Tex. Com. App.) 215 S. W. 448; Fred Miller Brewing Co. v. Coonrod (Tex. Civ. App.) 230 S. W. 1099 (writ refused); Fuqua v. Pabst Brewing Co., 90 Tex. 298, 38 S. W. 29, 750, 35 L. R. A. 241; Columbia Carriage Co. v. Hatch, 19 Tex. Civ. App. 120, 47 S. W. 288 (writ refused). Any contract or agreement in violation of the provisions of the Anti-Trust statutes of this state axe absolutely void and unenforceable in the courts of this state. Rev. Civ. Stat. Texas 1925, art. 7437.

The contract of date November 7, 1921, might be- legal as a pure agency contract if carried out as such, because, in such event, it would solely have affected interstate commerce, but if the intent, and purpose of the contract, as evidenced by the record and testimony, shows that it was to effect a direct outright sale to defendants, wherein the property sold, and now sued upon, became a part of the common mass of property in this state, and subject to its laws, the fact that the contract might have been legal on its face, as an agency contract, does not relieve it of its illegality as actually operated under and carried out. W. T. Rawleigh Co. v. Land (Tex. Civ. App.) 261 S. W. 186; Id., 115 Tex. 319, 279 S. W. 810. In other words, if the tires in question were sold outright to defendants, and after they arrived in Texas, being the property of defendants, were subject to the illegal provisions of said coutract, as a condition precedent to such sale, then the transact tion taken as a whole was rendered illegal and unenforceable.

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