McDonald v. Kansas City Bolt & Nut Co.

149 F. 360, 8 L.R.A.N.S. 1110, 1906 U.S. App. LEXIS 4475
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedNovember 12, 1906
DocketNo. 2,324
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 149 F. 360 (McDonald v. Kansas City Bolt & Nut Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McDonald v. Kansas City Bolt & Nut Co., 149 F. 360, 8 L.R.A.N.S. 1110, 1906 U.S. App. LEXIS 4475 (8th Cir. 1906).

Opinion

SANBORN, Circuit Judge.

The Kansas City Bolt & Nut Company, a corporation, brought an action against R. P. McDonald, who had agreed to purchase from it nine car loads of steel bands, rods, nuts, and shoes, and against John S. Worthington and Thomas Keely, [362]*362who had guarantied McDonald’s performance of his contract, for the purchase price of the last four car loads of the goods which the ve'ndor delivered, but which McDonald had refused to receive. Five car loads of the material had been received and paid for by him before these four car loads were shipped. The defendant answered the complaint for the price of these cars that the articles furnished failed to fulfill the terms of the contract, that the bands, which were made for the purpose of encircling and holding together wooden pipes made of staves for the purpose of conducting water from a reservoir in the mountains to the city of Golden, had latent defects, which caused many of them to break and become worthless when they were bent around the pipes and secured in place, but which, were not discoverable by inspection, and that the defendant, McDonald sustained damages by his attempt to use the bands in the five car loads which he received in.the sum of $3,687.29, for which he asked to recover upon a counterclaim. There was a verdict for the plaintiff, in which the jury allowed to the defendant a portion of this counterclaim, and at the hearing in this court counsel for the defendants below, the plaintiffs in error, conceded that the judgment should be affirmed unless there was error in the refusal of the Circuit Court to submit to the jury the first instruction which they requested, or in its rulings upon the measure of damages which' McDonald was entitled to recover on account of the failure of the plaintiff to comply with the contract. This was the requested instruction:

“If the jury believe from the evidence in this case that the pipe-bands first shipped to defendants by plaintiff did not comply with the terms of the .written contract between the parties hereto, and that the defendants were thereby damaged; that the defendants had a right to presume that the four car loads of pipe-bands thereafter shipped to them were of the same kind as those previously shipped, and that they had a right to refuse to accept them.”

The facts disclosed by the evidence which were material to the determination of the question of the legality of this instruction are these: The contract was made in April, 1903, and by its terms the goods were to be shipped between June 1st and September 1st in that year to the city of Golden, Colo., free on board the cars -at Kansas City, Mo., where the plaintiff was to manufacture them. The contract did not require the plaintiff to bend the pipe-bands, and the first two car loads were delivered about the last of July, 1903, without bending them. Some of these pipe-bands broke in the process of securing them around the pipes, and McDonald immediately complained to the plaintiff that they were defective and that they broke. Thereupon the plaintiff bent the bands which -it subsequently shipped, at its factory, and promised to replace free of cost those that had broken. In August, September, and October McDonald received and paid for three car loads of these bent bands. The bands in these car loads were much better than those in the first two loads, so much better that out of 7,655 half-inch bands which broke in the entire five car loads about 7,600, according to the testimony of McDonald, were in the two or three car loads first shipped, and only about 55 in the last two or three car loads he used. It was in this state of the case [363]*363that in the latter part of October and in November, 1903, the plaintiff shipped the four remaining car loads of pipe-bands and other materials which its contract required it to furnish, and after they had arrived at Golden, and in December, 1903, McDonald, without any examination or trial of 1 líese articles, refused to receive them because the pipe-bands he had obtained from the previous car loads were defective. The question is, had this purchaser the right to presume that the four car loads last shipped were of the same character as those previously shipped, and to refuse to accept them because those first shipped did not comply with the terms of the agreement? The question is divisible, and it involves these two issues: Had the purchaser the right to presume that the pipe-bands in the last four cars were of the same kind as those previously shipped, and the right to reject them on account of this presumption? And hád the purchaser the right to reject them regardless of the presumption because those first shipped did not fulfill the stipulations of the agreement? Conceding, without deciding, that from the fact that 7,600 half-inch bands in the first three cars broke a presumption arose that bands subsequently shipped would be of the same character and would fail to comply with the contract, that presumption was destroyed before the four car loads were sent by the fact that only about 55 of the bands of this kind in the two intermediate car loads broke; and if any presumption on this subject existed, it was the counter presumption that the pipe-hands in the four subsequent car loads would he of the same better quality as those last received by McDonald, which appear to have substantially complied with the contract. Hence, he had no right to reject those in the last four car loads on account of the alleged prer sumption claimed in the requested instruction, and the first question must be answered in the negative.

Counsel insist, however, that the purchaser had the right to refuse to take the articles in the last four car loads regardless of their presumptive character, because the goods furnished by the plaintiff in its first deliveries were not in accordance with the terms of the contract, and in support of this proposition thev cite Norrington v. Wright, 115 U. S. 188, 205, 6 Sup. Ct. 12, 29 L. Ed. 366; King Philip Mills v. Slater, 12 R. I. 82, 34 Am. Rep. 603; Cleveland Rolling Mill v. Rhodes, 121 U. S. 255, 7 Sup. Ct. 882, 30 L. Ed. 920; Pope v. Allis, 115 U. S. 363, 371, 372, 6 Sup. Ct. 69, 29 L. Ed. 393; Husted v. Craig, 36 N. Y. 221; Campbell Printing Press & Mfg. Co. v. Marsh, 20 Colo. 22, 36 Pac. 799; Filley v. Pope, 115 U. S. 213, 219, 220, 6 Sup. Ct. 19, 29 L. Ed. 372; National Surety Co. v. Long, 125 Fed. 887, 60 C. C. A. 623, and other cases of like character. The decisions in these cases hold that, where the vendor is required by an entire contract, as in the case at bar, to make successive deliveries of the articles sold, and the "first deliveries fail to comply with the terms of the agreement either in the quality or quantity of the goods or in the times or places of delivery, the vendee by prompt notice of his refusal to further perform upon the discovery of the failure may relieve himself from liability for subsequent deliveries. This, however, is not his only remedy. He has the option, upon the discovery of the [364]*364seller’s default, to refuse to receive and pay for further deliveries, and thus to terminate the contract, or to permit its performance to proceed, and to rely upon his damages for the vendor’s breach. But he may not delay his exercise of this choice.

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Bluebook (online)
149 F. 360, 8 L.R.A.N.S. 1110, 1906 U.S. App. LEXIS 4475, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcdonald-v-kansas-city-bolt-nut-co-ca8-1906.