Monitor Manufacturing Co. v. Jones

72 N.W. 44, 96 Wis. 619, 1897 Wisc. LEXIS 361

• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court
• Decided: June 24, 1897
• Status: Published

Opinion

Winslow, J.

The defendant’s contention is that the contracts under which the implements were placed in the hands of North & Sons were in fact contracts of conditional sale of the machines, and hence void as to all persons save the parties and those having actual notice thereof, because they were never filed in the office of the town or village clerk, as required by sec. 2317, R. S. This is the only substantial contention made, and, if it fails, the judgment must be affirmed.

Careful perusal of the contracts convinces us that they were commission contracts in legal effect, and not contracts of conditional sale. The contracts are quite similar in their terms to the contract which was under consideration in Williams M. & R. Co. v. Raynor, 38 Wis. 119, and which was held to be an agency or commission contract; and much that is there said applies with equal force to this case. The controlling question undoubtedly is whether the contract provides for consignments of goods to be settled for at fixed prices out of the proceeds of the goods when sold, or whether, under the terms of the contract, the alleged consignee is in fact a purchaser, and becomes liable for the goods, when sold, as a principal debtor; and these questions are to be determined not so much by the words used as by the evident intent and legal effect of the provisions. Scrutinizing the various provisions as carefully as possible, we conclude that the contract before us calls for consignments of goods to be settled for out of the proceeds of sales, and does not make the consignees purchasers of the goods.

By the Court.— Judgment affirmed.