Best Bros. v. Kempf
Best Bros. v. Kempf
Opinion of the Court
Plaintiff sold to defendant a harvesting machine upon an agreement of the defendant to pay therefor $275 and freightage in cash on delivery, or execute his note for the price of the machine, with eight per cent interest after August 1, 1881. By the terms of sale the machine was warranted to be of good material and well made, and that, if properly set up
I, There was evidence on the trial tending to sustain both plaintiffs’ right to recover and the defense of a breach of warranty made in the answer. The plaintiffs’ first complaint relates to the refusal of the court to give five instructions requested by them. The instructions in question fold the jury that they should find for the plaintiffs, if they believed from the evidence that the machine on its first trial, under ordinary circumstances, did good work, or if, having failed on its first trial to do good work, it nevertheless did good work upon a second trial, under ordinary circumstances,
II. The second error assigned is that, although there was no evidence in the case negativing the fact that the machine was of good material and well made, yet the court instructed the jury to find for the defendant unless they foimd that the machine was of good material and well made. This complaint is just. The warranty as to material and soundness of the machine was an independent warranty. Counsel recognize this fact in arguing here that the right of recovery was determined by the result of the two trials, if the material in the harvester met the other conditions of the warranty. It is an elementary proposition that an instruction must be based on evidence, and that it is error to submit any proposition to the jury which is not supported by evidence.
It is nest complained that the court erred in admitting testimony offered by defendant tending to show that changes were made in the manufacture of machines like the one in question in the year 1882. The machine, as above seen, was a Champion machine sold in May, 1881. The defendant’s evidence tended to show that the machine did not properly elevate and bind the wheat, and that for that reason the machine would choke. The defendant was permitted, against plaintiffs’ objection, to show by the agent of a rival company that, subsequently to the year 1881, the Champion company constructed a different elevator on its machine. Against similar objections the same'witness was permitted to testify that the Champion binder of 1881 had as a knot-tying device the plunger or tube knotter, and the binder of 1882 used the hook bill knotter. The
That this evidence was wholly irrelevant, is clear. The plaintiffs’ warranty was that the machine would do as good work as any other harvester binder. This means any other harvester binder then in use, and not one subsequently constructed by plaintiffs or other manufacturers. The admission of this evidence was, therefore, erroneous. Nor can we say that it was not prejudicial, since it would necessarily confuse the jury as to the scope of the warranty. Since the court submitted to the jury, in the absence of all evidence to the contrary, the question whether the machine was well made and of good material, the jury might even have found that the evidence touching subsequent improvements bore upon the warranty that the machine was well made, and that the machine was not well made because machines constructed by the Champion and other companies subsequently were made otherwise.
III. The foregoing paragraph (number II) is the reasoning of my associates, in which I do not concur. Conceding, for argument’s sake, that the recitals in the warranty as to the machine being of good material and well made amounted to a separate covenant to that effect, it by no means follows that there was no evidence tending to show its breach. There is abundant evidence in the record that the machine failed under both of the tests prescribed in the written warranty, i. e., it failed to do good work under ordinary circumstances on a first trial, and it also failed to perform on a second trial made under the direction of the warrantor, such failure not being due to ill adjustment or misuse of the machine. The evidence tending to prove these facts necessarily tended to show that the failures
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.