Petersburg Fire Brick & Tile Co. v. American Clay Machinery Co.
Petersburg Fire Brick & Tile Co. v. American Clay Machinery Co.
Opinion of the Court
The evidence material to the issues joined in this case is the written contract and the correspondence between the parties touching the subject-matter of the contract. This contract, in brief, provides that plaintiff shall furnish f. o. b. cars at Bucyrus, Ohio, or Willoughby, Ohio, or at factory where made, one two-mould dry-press brick machine; one eight-foot dry pan; and one No. 1 agitating clay feeder within thirty days, or sooner if possible. .For these three articles, to be delivered in the manner and at one of the places specified, the defendant was to pay $2,450. Six hundred dollars of this purchase price was to be .paid in thirty days after arrival of machinery on
The claim made by the defendant in its cross-petition that it was not fully advised of all the
In the absence of an action to reform for mutual mistake or to rescind the contract for fraud on the part of plaintiff, the terms of this contract must fix the rights and liabilities of both parties thereto.
That this contract is indivisible except by subsequent agreement of the parties is too plain for dispute. The delivery of part of the merchandise agreed to be delivered by the plaintiff is not a compliance with the contract, and, nothing else appearing, would not authorize plaintiff to .recover the value of any part of the merchandise furnished substantially less than named in the contract.
It is, therefore, important to determine, first, whether plaintiff performed the conditions and covenants of the contract on its part to be performed; or, if it did not, was its failure to do so justified by the conduct of the defendant? This machinery was to be furnished within a time certain named in the contract. It is claimed that this provision as to the time of shipment was waived
The contract provides for the delivery f. o. b. cars Bucyrus, or Willoughby, Ohio, or factory where made, for shipment to the defendant at Coal Grove, Lawrence county, Ohio. The dry pan that was shipped on the 8th day- of May was not consigned to the brick company. The bill of lading was taken in the name of the machinery company, endorsed by it and mailed to the brick company at Coal Grove, Ohio. This was not a serious departure from the provisions of the contract. It worked no inconvenience to the defendant-Even if it did, the purchaser accepted it without protest or complaint as to the manner of delivery. If the shipment of the dry-press machine and the agitating clay feeder had been so made, then if the time of delivery was in fact waived there would have been a substantial, if not a literal, compliance with the terms of the contract. When this second shipment was made the bill of lading was taken in the name of the machinery company, but it was never endorsed, delivered or tendered unconditionally to the brick company, as was done with the bill of lading for the dry pan. This merchandise was not delivered f. o. b. cars at Bucyrus, or Wil
The petition avers that the defendant company is a corporation, with its office and place of business located at Coal Grove, Lawrence county, Ohio. This contract does not provide for any conditions precedent to the delivery of this machinery, yet the defendant in error, instead of making delivery as contemplated in the contract, shipped the goods in its own name to Coal Grove, and sent the bill of lading with four unsigned promissory notes to evidence the purchase price thereof to The First National Bank of Ironton, Ohio, and notified the defendant, as a condition precedent to its receiving this bill of lading, that its officers must travel to Ironton, Ohio, and there execute these notes and deliver them to the bank at Iron-ton, and upon that condition and not otherwise the bank would deliver to the defendant the bill of lading. These facts appear from the evidence offered by the machinery company in support of the averment of its petition that it delivered the property to the purchaser. This was not a compliance with the terms of this contract. It was not the
I/ It is also insisted that delivery was complete j under the contract when the machinery was placed ’on cars at Bucyrus or Willoughby ready for shipment. That would have been true had the goods been consigned to the purchaser as the contract provided; but even if that had been done, under no possible construction of this contract would the purchaser have been required to travel to Bucyrus or Willoughby to deliver these notes before or even at the time of the consignment. A fair construction of the contract is that the notes were to be
It is also urged that the brick company made no objection to the manner of shipment or to the demand that it should execute these notes and deliver them to the bank at Ironton and there receive the transfer of the bill of lading, but that defendant’s objection was based solely upon a claim it made for damages, and which it insisted must be allowed' before it would receive the property. We do not consider this of any importance whatever if plaintiff was not misled thereby. The burden is on the plaintiff to show compliance on its part. Defendant did refuse to execute and deliver these notes to the bank at Ironton. In its letter of August 22, 1906, in reply to the letter of the machinery company under date of August 21, 1906, it used this language: "We decline to accept the machinery upon the terms you state, and you had just as well order the machinery back.” If there was any reason why it had a right to refuse to accept the terms of delivery then proposed by the machinery company, that reason is now available to it. If it were willing to comply with the conditions proposed by the machinery company upon the condition that certain allowances be made it, it had the right to make such a proposition, but there is nothing in all this correspondence or any of this evidence that shows any waiver as to the manner and method of delivery provided in the
Not only does it appear from this contract that the machinéry company had no right to demand the execution and delivery of these notes prior to the delivery of this machinery to a common carrier consigned to the brick company, or at a place other than the defendant’s place of business, but it also appears that by the terms of this contract the purchaser was not required to give a note for the first six-hundred-dollar payment to be made in thirty days. It is true that the contract provides that notes shall be given for deferred payments. It is also true that a payment to be made in thirty days is, in the absence of language expressing a contrary intention, a deferred payment, but it is very clear from the terms of the contract that it was not so considered by the parties and not intended to be evidenced by any promissory note whatever, but was in fact reckoned as a cash payment, and those payments that were to be deferred for four, eight and twelve months were considered the deferred payments
It is averred in the petition that the plaintiff took back this dry-press brick machine and agitating clay feeder from defendant at its request and credited the defendant with the sum of $1,600 on the full contract price. There is no evidence whatever in support of this averment except the refusal of the defendant to accept delivery and to comply with the conditions precedent imposed by the plaintiff to a delivery of this machinery. Under the terms of this contract the plaintiff upon default in payment was entitled to take this machinery, but it was not entitled to. take part and leave part. In the absence of an agreement to that effect, it was not authorized to divide this contract and leave the dry pan with the defendant at a price fixed by it and retake the dry-press brick machine and agitating clay feeder, crediting an amount, also fixed by plaintiff, as the value of these two articles.
By the express terms of this contract defendant in error is still the owner of this dry pan. If it had fully performed the conditions of this contract, it would have the right to sue for the contract price, notwithstanding the provisions of the contract that it is to remain the owner of this property until the purchase price is fully paid, but a court can afford no relief to a plaintiff in a suit to recover upon a contract when it appears that the plaintiff did not substantially perform the terms of the contract on his part to be performed.
The judgment of the circuit court affirming the judgment of the common pleas court on the first cause of action is reversed, and the judgment of the common pleas court on the first cause of action is reversed, and judgment here rendered for plaintiff in error on the first cause of action. The judgment of the circuit court affirming the judgment of the common pleas court on the second cause of action is affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.