Jahncke Service, Inc. v. Foret

139 So. 2d 554
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedApril 2, 1962
DocketNo. 21507
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 139 So. 2d 554 (Jahncke Service, Inc. v. Foret) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jahncke Service, Inc. v. Foret, 139 So. 2d 554 (La. Ct. App. 1962).

Opinion

JOHNSON, Judge.

The plaintiff brought this action against Clarence P. Foret d/b/a C-4-A Construction Company to recover the unpaid remainder of the price of materials sold to said defendant for úse in construction of “twelve (12) units to Sunny South Motel, and office, apartment, port-cochere, and ground improvements,” under a contract [555]*555between said defendant, as contractor, and Joseph M. Lavigne, as owner. The contract price was $57,800.00. The Maryland Casualty Company was made a party defendant as surety on the contractor’s performance bond, and plaintiff asks for judgment against both defendants in solido. After trial, the district Court rendered judgment for $493.30 against 'Clarence J. Foret d/b/a C-4-A Construction Company and dismissed the suit as against Maryland Casualty Company. Plaintiff has appealed.

Attached and filed with the petition is an itemized statement of the account. The answer of Maryland Casualty Company makes a simple denial of each allegation. The separate answer of the contractor admits his status, the contract, etc., but denies that the materials were sold and delivered to him and denies the debt.

Deliveries of the materials were made by trucks driven by some ten or twelve drivers. The driver of each truck delivery took with him a dray receipt, or ticket, on which was written (generally by typewriter in capital letters) in appropriate places, the name and address of the purchaser “C-4-A Construction,” the date of the purchase, the date of the delivery, the invoice number, the order number and a complete and detailed description and quantity of materials being delivered by that truck.

Fred W. Hellbach, plaintiff’s credit manager and assistant secretary, testified that in connection with the establishment of credit requested by Clarence J. Foret d/b/a C-4-A Construction Company for delivery of materials to Sunny South Motel, Mr. Hellbach examined the official records of Jefferson Parish and found recorded the contract between Lavigne, as owner, and the contractor with contractor’s performance bond signed by Maryland Casualty Company as surety thereon. The witness said that all orders for materials were made on behalf of and in the name of Clarence J. Foret d/b/a C-4 — A Construction Company with the job designated as Sunny South Motel. He identified the itemized account (P-1) and verified the correctness thereof. The only payment made on the account was $667.33, paid on March 6, 1957. The total amount for all the materials was $1,939.08. Applying the credit, the amount claimed by this suit is $1,271.75.

Mr. Plellbach identified the dray receipts (P-2 through 43) which he said covered the deliveries to the contractor at Sunny South Motel. He also testified that these signed receipts are records of his office; that the procedure followed was that when the shipping department got an order from this contractor, someone called the credit department for approval for the purchase and then made up the shipment record; that the information came to him afterward when his office checked and entered the charge on the ledger, and that the truck drivers returned to his office the signed dray receipts after delivery of the materials.

• The delivery receipts were offered in evidence by plaintiff and the offering was objected to by counsel for defendant, Maryland Casualty Company. There was no objection on the part of the contractor’s counsel. On this objection the Court said:

“I will permit the introduction for what they represent. Of course counsel for defendant makes a good point— they don’t show delivery — that will have to be shown later. But I will permit them to be introduced in evidence.”

As stated above, the deliveries were made by a number of separate truck drivers. Counsel for plaintiff produced only one of these drivers, Horace Henry. This driver identified deliveries made by him represented by dray receipts P-9, 10, 13, 34, 35, 36 and 37. Henry testified that these deliveries were made to the Sunny South Motel and that each receipt is signed by the person in charge of the job at that time. The judgment of the trial Court included the amounts represented by the Horace Henry deliveries as properly proven. The judgment also includes additional amounts rep[556]*556resented by dray receipts P-2, 28, 38, 40 and 41, but the trial Judge did not explain the reason for approving the amounts represented by these tickets. The amount of the judgment is for the materials described on the twelve receipts listed above, a total of $493.30. There is no appeal by either defendant and no answer to the appeal taken by plaintiff.

Counsel for plaintiff contends that the dray receipts in themselves prove that the materials were delivered to the job site, and that it is unnecessary to produce each truck driver to verify each delivery and that the signature on each receipt is bona fide. Mere production of the dray receipts by plaintiff from its files with the unsupported statement of plaintiff’s office employee that the truck drivers returned the documents to his office after making deliveries is not proof in itself sufficient to establish that the deliveries were made to the job site and that the receipts were signed by persons apparently in authority. It is true that the plaintiff is not required to follow the material to prove that it was actually used by the contractor in the work, but the Court must know that the material was actually delivered to the proper place and to the proper person.

In this case, the contractor, by his testimony has supplied information that makes it possible to determine that the materials described on all the dray receipts, except three, were delivered to persons apparently authorized to receive the deliveries at the job site. Mr. Foret was called as a witness on cross-examination by plaintiff’s counsel. He did not deny, and it is clear from the evidence, that all the material was ordered by him or in his name, d/b/a C-4 — A Construction Company, for the Sunny South Motel job. The question is, was delivery made? Mr. Foret acknowledged that A1 Guillot was his superintendent on that job; that J. M. Lavigne was the owner; that Samson Charles Gros, Jr., was the contractor’s employee, and that any of his men were authorized to receive materials. He said that Oscar E. Gaspard was one of the sub-contractors on that job, and while the sub-contractor had not been authorized by him to receive materials, he explained that, as a matter of fact, what actually happens is that when the truck driver delivers materials he gets the person he finds in charge of, or working on, the job to sign the dray receipt. All of the above named parties signed various delivery receipts. While Foret said that he did not know their signatures, he would not say that these persons did not sign the receipts. He did not repudiate any of their signatures or authority. Flis testimony raises a strong presumption that these men received for him on that job site delivery of the materials described on the receipts which they signed. In support of that presumption we find that A1 Guillot, the superintendent, made out and signed order forms for materials, which forms were furnished by the contractor, and they contain in a proper space the information that the materials ordered thereon are for “job — S. S. Motel.” Printed on these order forms also is the instruction: “Mail all invoices as soon as possible after each purchase is made direct to C-Four-A Construction Company, Westwego, La.” .The materials described on these particular order forms were delivered with dray receipts, P-40 and 41, and A1 Guillot signed dray receipts P-16 through 41.

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Bluebook (online)
139 So. 2d 554, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jahncke-service-inc-v-foret-lactapp-1962.