Callahan v. Gorson
Callahan v. Gorson
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
The plaintiff’s action arises out of a contract with the defendant for the purchase of an automobile. Her allegation was that the defendant agreed to sell her a Paige touring car of the 1911 model which had been used less than a year;. that the car was represented to be in good condition, and was “guaranteed for a year”; that the price was $875, $325 of which was paid in cash at the time of purchase and $225 by way of exchange of a Packard car owned by the plaintiff and delivered to the defendant, the balance to be paid in weekly installments. The plaintiff took the car and her son used it at times for
There was evidence that the car was of the 1913 and not the 1914 model, and that it had been in use for more than two years instead of less than one as represented by the defendant’s selling agent. Having applied to the defendant to make good his guarantee which application was refused the plaintiff returned the car to the defendant’s place of business and brought this action to enforce the guarantee. The defendant contended (1) that he never sold the car to the plaintiff, that it was in fact sold by him to the Auto Transit Company, with which company the plaintiff entered into a conditional lease for the rental and subsequent purchase of the car; (2) that if the transaction was a sale by the defendant to the plaintiff as there was no averment made or proof offered of a demand by the plaintiff on the defendant to return the Packard car which she delivered to the defendant and as the Paige car had been used by the plaintiff fqr two weeks or more, she had not only not made a complete rescission of the contract, but had also been guilty of laches in attempting such rescission; and (3) the action is one of deceit, while in form an action of assumpsit and it was, therefore, incumbent on the plaintiff to prove the defendant’s knowledge of the falsity of the representations. The first proposition arises out of a transaction which the learned trial judge characterized as “a cunning fraud” attempted to be perpetrated on the plaintiff. The evidence shows that the plaintiff came to pay the hand-money and deliver her car to complete the purchase. The defendant gave a receipt for the payment of $325 and said to the plaintiff: “You go down to 10th and Chestnut, that is our big bookkeeping department, and you pay the balance there.” It was explained to her by the defendant’s agent that they had no room at the place where their automobiles were kept and she' was di
It is a misapprehension to assume that the plaintiff’s action is essentially one of deceit. She set up a warranty and alleged a breach. The trial court having found that the defendant had made default a verdict for damages for the breach of warranty necessarily followed. If the. contract was for the sale of a specific kind of car and of a defined quality to be used for a particular purpose as alleged then there was a warranty and such contract may be enforced. The law applicable to the case is set forth in Groetzinger v. Kann, 165 Pa. 578, where numerous authorities are cited which support the plaintiff’s position. We do not regard any of the reasons suggested by the learned counsel for the appellant as sufficient to justify a reversal of the judgment. The conclusions of fact of the trial judge were sufficiently supported by the testimony.
The judgment is affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.