Wilson & Co. v. Mississippi Box Co.
Wilson & Co. v. Mississippi Box Co.
Opinion of the Court
This was an action by appellee against the appellants to recover the contract price for certain tomato crates, manufactured by appellee, and alleged to have been sold and delivered by it to the appellants. The complaint was in the usual form of a complaint for goods, wares and merchandise sold and delivered, and attached thereto, as an exhibit, was a copy of the account sued on.
The appellant Wilson and Company filed its answer in general denial. The appellant Grafton Johnson filed an answer in two paragraphs—the first being a general denial. A reply in general denial to the second paragraph of said answer closed the issues, which were submitted to the court for trial with a request for a special finding of the facts. The courts made such finding and stated as its conclusion of law thereon: “That the defendants are each liable to the plaintiff for the sum of Two Thousand Four Hundred and Seventy-five ($2475) Dollars with interest thereon at the rate of six per cent, per annum from the first day of November 1917. And that the plaintiff is entitled to recover said sum of and from said defendants.”
To which conclusion each of the appellants separately excepted. Judgment was rendered in accordance with conclusion of law as stated, and the separate motions of appellants for a new trial having been overruled, they prosecute this appeal upon separate assignments of error.
The appellant Wilson and Company have assigned as error: (1) Error in conclusions of law; (2) error in overruling their motion for a new trial. The same errors have been assigned by appellant Johnson.
We shall first notice the errors assigned and presented by Wilson and Company.
It is first insisted the finding of facts is insufficient to support the conclusion of law stated, because there
We do not Seem it necessary to set out the several findings of the court in full in disposing of this case. The court found that the crates in question were ordered, “by wire and by letter,” by one A. L. Stanton, on August 6,1917, and that in said order it was stated that, “Wilson and Company have taken over all the Grafton Johnson canning interests,” and that all business pertaining to said crates would be done from that date on through them and directed said crates to be. shipped to Wilson and Company, at Dupont, Indiana. The court further found that Wilson and Company had, on April 10, 1917, purchased of Grafton Johnson the canning factory owned by him, at Whiteland, Indiana, and also the “shipping station” at Dupont, Indiana, and that Wilson and Company owned and operated said plant and said “shipping station” at the time said order was given. It was further found that said crates were shipped by appellee to Wilson and Company, at Dupont, Indiana, and said company duly notified thereof; that Wilson and Company received and accepted the entire number of crates ordered by said Stanton, and appropriated the same to their own use; that said Wilson and Company accepted said crates and has ever since used the sanie, and has ever since retained possession, after knowing that the same was invoiced to them.
It is next insisted that the evidence does not sustain the finding that Wilson and Company had any knowledge or received any notice that the said crates in question had been invoiced to them. A reading of the
The appellant Grafton Johnson insists that as there is no finding that said Stanton was the agent of said Johnson in said matter, and no fact or facts showing any ratification of such supposed agency, and no fact or facts found which would estop said Johnson from denying such agency, the said conclusion of law is, as to himself, erroneous.
We therefore conclude that as against said appellant Johnson the court erred in its conclusion of law upon the facts as found.
The judgment is therefore affirmed as to said Wilson and Company, and reversed as to appellant Grafton Johnson, with directions to the trial court to restate its conclusion of law as to said Grafton Johnson, in harmony with this opinion, and to render judgment thereon, accordingly. The costs of this appeal to be taxed against said Wilson and Company.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.