Johnson v. Identification Inc.

716 S.W.2d 10, 1986 Mo. App. LEXIS 4643
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedSeptember 9, 1986
DocketNo. 37166
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 716 S.W.2d 10 (Johnson v. Identification Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Johnson v. Identification Inc., 716 S.W.2d 10, 1986 Mo. App. LEXIS 4643 (Mo. Ct. App. 1986).

Opinion

NUGENT, Judge.

Defendant Identification, Inc., appeals from a judgment for plaintiff Carl E. Johnson in an action to recover damages for breach of an oral contract for the sale of a [11]*11Pexto power squaring shear. The jury-awarded plaintiff damages in the amount of $12,287.00. Defendant in its appeal asserts that (1) the evidence failed to support plaintiffs claim that defendant intended to include the Bertsch Shear as part of its agreement and thus the submission of plaintiffs Instruction No. 7, which included this as an element of plaintiffs claim, was erroneous and prejudicial, and (2) that defendant was denied the right to present evidence of plaintiffs abandoned claim in Count II of his petition to be used as an admission against plaintiffs interest and to impeach plaintiffs testimony. We affirm the judgment.

The evidence was sufficient, if believed, to establish the following facts: Plaintiff Carl E. Johnson is a dealer in new and used metal working equipment. At the time in question, William Maidhof was the owner and president of defendant Identification, Inc.

In October, 1981, Carl Johnson agreed to buy for defendant a certain Pexto power squaring shear, which Mr. Maidhof had seen and personally tested. Defendant was to pay plaintiff $7,500, his cost, plus a twenty-five percent commission and $300 for the hauling and delivery of the shear. In addition, when Mr. Johnson asked Mr. Maidhof what he planned to do with defendant’s old Bertsch Shear, he said that Johnson could have it as part of the deal.

Mr. Johnson bought the shear and delivered and installed it in defendant’s plant under the eyes of defendant’s employees. At that time, nothing on the machine was broken. The placement of the machine in the plant revealed that its squaring arm on the left side would block the pathway of the workmen. At the behest of defendant’s man, plaintiff agreed to change the squaring arm. He removed it and took it to his shop to revamp it so that it would work on the right side.

In the meanwhile, defendant’s employees electrically wired the shear, but four days after its installation, Mr. Maidhof’s son called to say that the shear “fell apart” when he punched the switch. Mr. Johnson went to defendant’s plant and found that it had been incorrectly wired to run backwards and that all the clutches and the engaging lever, were bent and broken. Again at defendant’s request, although defendant’s employee had broken the lever, plaintiff Johnson agreed to fix the machine and to replace the lever. He could not find a new lever, however, so he told Mr. Maid-hof that he would “brace”1 and pin the broken lever, which he did.

When the lever had been repaired, plaintiff and two of his workmen returned to defendant’s plant and started to reassemble the machine, but Mr. Johnson had to return to his shop to get a test light to use in the reassembly. Upon returning to defendant’s plant, he found that Mr. Maidhof had ejected his two workmen from the plant. When Mr. Johnson went to the defendant’s office for an explanation, Mr. Maidhof refused to pay for the shear and told plaintiff, “By damaging it, it’s your machine, and you’ll have to sue me for it.”

Mr. Johnson then returned to the plant to retrieve his workman’s jacket and found that, after his workmen had been ejected, defendant’s forklift operator had moved and dropped the shear, in the process raising it so high above the floor that when it fell it “dug a lot of concrete out of the floor.” The machine had fallen on its back, which was broken and bent, and the motor and switches had broken off and the wires were all hanging loose.

Mr. Maidhof admitted that he had agreed to buy the Pexto shear for $7,500 and to pay $300 for its delivery. He also conceded that his Bertsch Shear was “in a sense” part of this deal in that he “had no use for the thing.”

In his first point on appeal, defendant contends that the trial court erred in submitting plaintiff’s Instruction No. 7 be[12]*12cause the record contained no evidence to support plaintiffs contention that defendant intended to include the Bertsch shear as part of the agreement and that the submission of an instruction not supported by evidence prejudiced defendant.

Instruction No. 7 submitted pursuant to MAI 26.06 is as follows:

Your verdict must be for plaintiff if you believe:
First, plaintiff and defendant entered into an oral agreement whereby plaintiff agreed to sell and deliver to defendant a 10-foot Pexto Power Squaring Shear and defendant agreed to pay plaintiff $7,500.00 plus a 25% commission, plus $300.00 for moving and handling costs and to give plaintiff defendant’s used 10-foot Bertsch Shear, and
Second, plaintiff performed his agreement, and
Third, defendant failed to perform the agreement, and
Fourth, plaintiff was thereby damaged.

Defendant argues that the instruction required the jury to find several conjunctive elements and that the failure to find any one would require a verdict for defendant.

In determining whether plaintiff has made a submissible case, the appellate court will review the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Siegel v. Ellis, 288 S.W.2d 932, 934 (Mo.1956). An appellate court must accept plaintiffs evidence as true, giving plaintiff the benefit of all favorable inferences to be drawn from the evidence and disregarding defendant’s evidence except insofar as it may aid the plaintiff’s case. Jordan v. Robert Half Personnel Agencies of Kansas City, Inc., 615 S.W.2d 574, 586 (Mo.App.1981). Further, the jury may believe all, part or none of the testimony of any witness to the case. Young v. Kansas City Southern Railway Co., 374 S.W.2d 150, 153 (Mo.1964).

On direct examination plaintiff testified as follows:

Q. All right. Now, in addition to the $7,500 price plus the twenty-five percent commission and then $300 to haul it up, did you have any other terms to the agreement that you had with Mr. Maidhof?
A. I asked him what he was going to do with the old shear and he said, ‘Hell, you can have it.’
Q. That was a quote from Mr. Maidhof?
A. That’s right.

In addition to plaintiff’s evidence, Mr. Maidhof made the following statements on direct examination in response to defense counsel’s questions:

Q. Bill, the old Bertsch machine,—
A. Yes.
Q. —you’re being sued for not turning that over. Was that part of the deal?
A. Well, yeah. In a sense. To be perfectly honest about it, I had no use for the thing. If the Pexto had been a working, operable unit, the damn thing would have been in my shop.

The foregoing testimony furnished sufficient evidence for a jury reasonably to conclude that the Bertsch shear was part of the agreement. Therefore, the trial court properly submitted Instruction No. 7.

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Bluebook (online)
716 S.W.2d 10, 1986 Mo. App. LEXIS 4643, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/johnson-v-identification-inc-moctapp-1986.