Hettrick Mfg. Co. v. James A. Shepherd & Co.

295 F. 10, 1924 U.S. App. LEXIS 3143
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 8, 1924
DocketNo. 3838
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 295 F. 10 (Hettrick Mfg. Co. v. James A. Shepherd & Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hettrick Mfg. Co. v. James A. Shepherd & Co., 295 F. 10, 1924 U.S. App. LEXIS 3143 (6th Cir. 1924).

Opinion

KNAPPEN, Circuit Judge.

Defendant in error (hereinafter called plaintiff) is a corporation organized under the laws of Great Britain and doing business at Glasgow, Scotland. Plaintiff in error (hereinafter called defendant) is an Ohio corporation, doing business at Toledo in that state. It is undisputed that on or about July 23, 1915, defendant’s predecessor, a manufacturer of cotton duck, to whose obligations defendant has succeeded, contracted with plaintiff, which had ,a. contract with the British government for wagon covers, for the sale and delivery to plaintiff of 83,500 yards of 38-inch cotton duck at 39 cents per yard f. o. b. New York, plus freight, insurance, and other charges, the goods to be delivered and paid for in cash, less 3 per cent.; against shipping documents. Plaintiff claims that the contract, which was by correspondence, provided for delivery in weekly installments of 5,500 to 6,000 yards; the first installment to be delivered as soon as possible, and not later than 40 days after July 10, 1915.. Defendant denies the installment-delivery feature. On or about December 2, 1915 (four or five months after the contract was made), the first installment, of about 3,740 yards, arrived in Glasgow and was received and paid for by plaintiff. About seven days later the remainder of'the goods, amounting to 79,842 yards, arrived in Glasgow, and defendant thereupon attempted to deliver to plaintiff the entire amount, demanding payment therefor in advance. Plaintiff claims that thereupon, with a view of meeting the unexpected situation created by the arrival of the entire remaining order without notice, plaintiff and defendant entered into a “new supplementary agreement,” whereby the goods should be-placed in storage and removed therefrom within a period of four months from December 17, 1915, in lots of 5,500 yards or thereabouts, upon the tender from time to time by plaintiff on the delivery of each lot of the original price of 39 cents per yard, plus the proper proportion of freight, insurance, and similar charges. About five days later plaintiff received and paid for one installment lot of 5,105 yards, and on December 30, 1915, defendant sold to another customer the entire remainder of the goods at a substantial advance. It denies the alleged supplemental agreement. In this suit for damages for failure to deliver the balance of the goods according to the alleged contract, the special verdict of the jury negatived the unconditional making of the claimed agreement of December 17, 1915, but by its general verdict of $13,788.31 in favor of plaintiff necessarily found that the contract of July 23, 1915, contemplated installment deliveries substantially as claimed by plaintiff.

Defendant contends: First, that plaintiff’s cause of action asserted by its petition is for breach of the agreement of December 17th, that [12]*12plaintiff’s testimony established the making of that agreement, which thus abrogated and took the place of the first contract, and thus that, even if plaintiff had based its action on the first agreement (July 23d), it could not have recovered because of fatal variance between pleading and proof; second, that even if plaintiff’s cause of action is upon the original agreement, the same was not an installment contract, the evidence establishing it was not in conflict, and its construction should thus have been determined by the court and not submitted to the jury; third, that there was error in the charge as to the damages; and, fourth, that certain evidence was erroneously admitted.

1. We are unable to agree with defendant’s first contention, in view of the allegations in the petition and the facts, either undisputed or which the evidence tended to prove as hereinbefore and hereinafter stated. It was fairly inferable that the petition was intended to charge that the alleged supplementary agreement was made only for the purpose of saving the situation resulting from defendant’s breach of its original agreement, under which supplementary agreement the amount ultimately to be delivered as well as the price were unchanged, the amount of each delivery being substantially as in the original contract. The differences were that the average time between deliveries was shortened,1 and plaintiff, as more definitely stated in the testimony, was to pay the storage and interest on the value of the stored goods and to drop the 3 per cent, discount. It is true only in the most technical sense that the original contract can be said to have been abrogated by the supplementary agreement. The petition, so far from alleging such abrogation,. treated the arrangement of December 17th as supplementary to the existing contract. We are disposed to think the trial judge rightly construed the petition (as he seems to have done) as treating the original contract not as superseded, but as modified in certain respects. But, however this may be, we think the judge was amply justified in submitting the case on whichever theory should be found by the jury to accord with the facts. If the supplementary agreement was not made, plaintiff ought not forever to lose the right to recover under the original contract (if actually made as plaintiff asserted and as the jury found), merely because plaintiff had mistakenly labeled the supplementary agreement. The contentions of both parties, as regards both the terms of the original contract and the making of the supplementary agreement, had been fully tried out under issues joined’thereon. There could have been no room for a claim of surprise with respect to testimony, and the question of variance was thus immaterial. Waters v. Guile (C. C. A. 6) 234 Fed. 532, 538, 539, 148 C. C. A. 298.

There had been no request by defendant for a directed verdict, nor for instructions to the jury. Had the question of the sufficiency of the petition for submission on both theories been thus formally presented, the court would not only have had the right, but it would have been its duty, to allow an amendment to meet the proofs already in (intro[13]*13duced under the issues joined), either by the addition of a count on the original contract alone or otherwise, and thus save the necessity of another trial. Pennsylvania Co. v. Whitney (C. C. A. 6) 169 Fed. 572, 95 C. C. A. 70; Spitzer v. Trustees (C. C. A. 6) 267 Fed. 121, 129. We think the court had such right in the interest of justice, even without plaintiff’s request. That it did not deem such amendment necessary does not alter the ultimate situation.

2. Defendant’s asserted right to abrogate the contract for plaintiff’s failure to accept and immediately pay in full for the remainder of nearly 80,000 yards, tendered on or about December 9th, turned upon the meaning of the original contract with reference to deliveries. We are unable to agree with defendant’s contention that the so-called “official order,” hereinafter set out, clearly and unambiguously provided merely for delivery within a reasonable time of the entire amount in one installment. The contract was negotiated between plaintiff and one Parker, a “manufacturers’ agent,” doing business in London, and who in this transaction represented defendant at least as a broker, whatever his relations with plaintiff as.to its contract with the government may have been. An earlier contract between plaintiff and defendant, for a smaller amount, was under negotiation through Parker when the contract here in suit was first considered.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
295 F. 10, 1924 U.S. App. LEXIS 3143, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hettrick-mfg-co-v-james-a-shepherd-co-ca6-1924.