Kahn v. Carl Schoen Silk Corp.

128 A. 359, 147 Md. 516, 44 A.L.R. 285, 1925 Md. LEXIS 131
CourtCourt of Appeals of Maryland
DecidedFebruary 28, 1925
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 128 A. 359 (Kahn v. Carl Schoen Silk Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kahn v. Carl Schoen Silk Corp., 128 A. 359, 147 Md. 516, 44 A.L.R. 285, 1925 Md. LEXIS 131 (Md. 1925).

Opinion

Digges, J.,

delivered tbe opinion of tbe Cburt.

Tbis appeal is from .a judgment obtained in the Superior Court of Baltimore City by tbe appellee (plaintiff below) against the appellant (defendant below) for 'the sum of $1701.15. Tbe declaration is in assumpsit and sought to recover tbe difference between tbe contract price of merchandise sold by tbe appellee to» tbe appellant and tbe re-sale price of tbe same merchandise when sold after tbe appellant bad refused to accept delivery. Tbe record contains twenty exceptions, nineteen to' tbe rulings on evidence and tbe twentieth' te» tbe ruling on tbe prayers. At the close of tbe testimony in tbe case there were seven prayers offered by tbe plaintiff and two> by tbe defendant. Tbe court rejected all of tbe offered prayers with the exception of the plaintiff’s fourth prayer, which was granted after modification by the court. One of tbe prayers offered by tbe defendant, designated in tbe record as defendant’s third prayer, is a general *519 demurrer to the evidence, asking the -court to instruct the jury that there is no evidence in the case legally sufficient to entitle thg plaintiff to recover and their verdict must be for the defendant. The other prayer offered by the defendant is as follows.: “The defendant prays the court to instruct the jury that there has been offered no evidence in this case legally sufficient to entitle the plaintiff to recover under the pleadings in this ease and therefore their verdict should be for the defendant.” This Court has been called upon in many recent eases to p-as-s upon prayers- of similar form to the defendant’s fourth prayer, and the result of our decisions in those oases is that where the prayer is intended as a variance prayer it is properly rejected because it does not comply with the provisions of the Act of 1914, chapter 110, now codified as section 9-A of article 5 of jhe -Code of Public General Laws, decisions to this effect being found in .a number of eases, beginning with Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Bloede, 127 Md. 344, down to- and including Caltrider v. Weant (147 Md. 338), being No. 44 of the present term of this -Court, in which last case the preceding eases deciding this question are collected and cited. It is evident in the present ease that this fourth prayer was intended to- be a variance prayer, for the reason that the defendant’s third prayer is a general demurrer prayer and the defendant accomplishes by that prayer everything which he .could accomplish by his fourth prayer, unless it was intended as a variance prayer, and as stated, if it was so intended, it was properly rejected. What was said in this respect by the -Court, speaking through Judge Offutt in the ease of Balto. & O. R. R. Co. v. Walsh, 142 Md. 230, is directly applicable to the present case. The plaintiff’s fourth prayer, which was granted as modified by the court, is an instruction as to the measure of damages. The exception taken to the ruling on the prayers, therefore, presents two questions for our determination: Eirst, was there any legally sufficient evidence in the whole case entitling the plaintiff to recover; and, second, if the plaintiff is entitled to *520 recover, does the plaintiff’s fourth prayer, as modified by the court, state the correct rule .as to tire measure of damages? The denial of the plaintiff’s right to recover is based upon the theory that section 25 of article 83 of the Oode of Public General Laws*, -which is a provision contained in the Uniform Sales Act, -and -which is substantially a. re-enactment of the provisions of the statute of frauds relating to the sale of personal property of the value- of fifty dollars and over, prevents a recovery in this case, in that the provisions of the statute have not been complied with. The provisions of section 25 of article 83 are- .as follows:

“A contract to sell or a sale of any goods or choses in action of the value of fifty dollars or upward shall not he enforceable by action, unless the buyer shall accept part of the goods or choses in action so contracted to be sold, or sold, and actually receive the same, or give something in earnest to bind the contract, or in part payment, or unless some note or memorandum in writing of the contract or sale he signed by the party to he charged or his agent in that behalf. (2) The provisions of this section apply to every such contract or sale, notwithstanding that the goods may be intended to be delivered at some future time, or may not at the time of such contract or sale be actually made, procured or provided, or fit or ready for delivery, or some act; may be requisite for the- making or completing theroef, or rendering the same fit for delivery; but if the goods are to be manufactured by the seller especially for the buyer and are not suitable for sale to others in the ordinary course of the seller’s business, the provisions of this section shall not apply.”

The answer to- this contention, by the -appellee, is that, the goods- in question having been manufactured by tbe appellee (the seller thereof) especially for the appellant (the buyer thereof) and not being suitable for sale to others in the ordinary course -of the appellee’s- business, the provisions of the statute quoted -do not .apply; and, second, tlnif if *521 the statute does apply, its requirements have been met. There is no1 question, iu this ease, that nothing was given iu earnest to hind the contract and that the delivery of the merchandise was not accepted by the buyer, hut it is contended by the appellee that there has been such note or memorandum iu writing of the contract of sale, signed by the party to he charged, as constitutes .a compliance with the statutory requirement. Iu order to determine these questions we must examine the evidence as disclosed by the record.

'The appellee is a manufacturer of silk dress goods for ladies’ wear, silk shadings and men’s neckwear silk, with factories located in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Rhode Island and sales rooms at 260 Eourth Avenue, New York City. The appellant is a firm located in Baltimore City, Maryland, engaged in the manufacture and sale of silk neck-wear. In the latter part of Eebmary or early in March, 1920, Jack Cold, an employee and salesman of the appellee, called a.t the appellant’s place of business in Baltimore and exhibited samples or “swatches” of silk, with the purpose of selling to the appellant silk from which the appellant would manufacture ties for sale to its trade, and that the appellant might select the various patterns, designating the same .and the quantity of each pattern so selected. As a result of the conversation between the salesman and the appellant and the conclusion then reached by them, an order was made out and reduced to writing by the salesman, which contained the name and address of the appellee as being the seller, the date, March 11, 1920, the name and address of the appellant, “Terms, as before,” “Order No. 6175,” “Delivery, goods f. o. b. New York: May, Jnne, July 20,” “Credit and delivery of goods subject to approval of Peierls, Buhler & Co., to whom all bills are payable”; and then followed twenty-two sets of numbers representing the design or pattern of silk ordered, with.the number of yards set 'opposite each pattern .and the price per yard opposite the number of yards. The salesman, Cold, then took this memorandum and *522

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Bluebook (online)
128 A. 359, 147 Md. 516, 44 A.L.R. 285, 1925 Md. LEXIS 131, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kahn-v-carl-schoen-silk-corp-md-1925.