Baskett v. Hall
Baskett v. Hall
Opinion of the Court
Opinion ok the Court by
Reversing.
The appellee and plaintiff below, James R. Hall, sold his 1917 crop of corn to the appellant and defendant below, Lee Baskett, who contracted in his own name, but who in reality was acting as agent for a Louisville firm. The price which defendant agreed to pay for the. corn was $1.65 per bushel. Plaintiff delivered in cars under the contract 1,220 bushels of his .crop and some days thereafter defendant paid him $1,708.34, leaving a balance due on the 1,220 bushels, at the agreed price, of $304.66, and plaintiff filed this suit to recover that sum and in addition the sum of $121.35, alleged damages for the failure of plaintiff to receive and pay for the balance of plaintiff’s crop at the price agreed upon. Upon trial there was a verdict in favor of plaintiff for the $304.66, upon which judgment was rendered, and complaining of it defendant has filed a transcript of the 'record in this court accompanied with a motion for an appeal. At the time of the contract of purchase, which was made by telephone, defendant had not seen the corn and he claims that it was represented by plaintiff to be goo<j, merchantable corn and suitable for seed corn. Plaintiff agreed substantially with defendant’s version of the contract in this respect except he says that he made no statement as to the corn being suitable for seed, but he admitted that he represented it to be good, merchantable corn. Plaintiff began delivering the corn on a day when
“I -went to Mr. Hall’s house to see him about the corn one day. He -was sick in bed. I told him -about the corn. He didn’t hardly know what to do about it. He said he was sick. I says ‘Mr. Hall, that corn is in a worse shape than you think it is.’ I-says ‘Outside it looks pretty well, but inside it is damaged considerably. ’ He asked me what I would do with it, if it was mine. I stated if it was -mine I would send it to Louisville and let that man set a price on it. He said: ‘You do with it like it was yours.’ ”
Plaintiff admitted the substance' of Tom Baskett’s testimony, as above quoted, when he' testified that:
“Mr. Tom (Baskett) came to see me; he said the corn didn’t suit Mr. Baskett. (defendant) altogether, and the best plan would be to let him receive my crop of com; send it to Mr. Ewing at Louisville, the man who received corn; if there was any damage to the corn, that I would
He further testified: “He (Tom Baskett) says: ‘I won’t bother you much; you are not well.’ He says: ‘My .advice to you about the corn would be to let Lee (defendant) receive the corn, and if there is any damaged corn docked, leave it to Mr. Ewing.’ He says: ‘He will do the fair, square thing by you.’ ”
' It is uncontradicted that after that conversation plaintiff delivered enough of his corn to fill the two available • cars, which was 1,220 bushels altogether, and that it was shipped to plaintiff’s principal in Louisville, a. Mr. Ewing,- who agreed to and did send defendant a check therefor at the rate of $1.40 per bushel, which check was immediately endorsed and delivered to plaintiff, who afterwards sold the remainder of his corn to- another without offering to deliver it to defendant. It is proven without contradiction that the price paid by Ewing was the market- price for corn of that quality at the time, and we think there can be no doubt from the testimony that plaintiff’s corn was considerably damaged at the time he delivered the 1,220 bushels to defendant. This is shown by plaintiff’s servants who hauled it, by defendant and his brother, Tom Baskett, and by plaintiff’s agent, Mn Harding. All of these witnesses say that the corn appeared to be sound on the outside of the ear but when broken at least half, if not more, of the ears were damaged next to the cob which rendered it of an inferior quality and not such as plaintiff represented it to be.
It is not necessary that we. hold that the testimony was sufficient to conclusively sustain defendant’s contention as to the quality of the corn (although we might say there is but little doubt concerning this) since the testimony does establish’that defendant in good faith objected to its quality, and to settle the controversy concerning it plaintiff agreed that he would abide by whatever Tom Baskett did in the matter. The latter, affer his conversation with plaintiff as above shown, reported to his brother, the defendant, and the suggestions with reference to shipping the corn to Mr. Ewing at Louisville were carried out. That plaintiff fully agreed to the above method of settling the dispute concerning the quality of corn is further shown by his testimony when he said, “Along about a couple of weeks (after the delivery of the corn) I called, up Mr. Baskett to see if hé had gotten returns; he said no, but that he would call up that day and
The terms of the settlement agreed to by Tom Baskett, plaintiff’s acknowledged agent who was selected for that purpose, having been fully executed there remains no other obligation to bé performed by defendant, and the motion for the appeal is sustained and the judgment is reversed with directions to sustain the motion for a new trial and to set aside the judgment and for other proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.