Cayuga Linen & Cotton Mills, Inc. v. Crédito y Ahorro Ponceño
Cayuga Linen & Cotton Mills, Inc. v. Crédito y Ahorro Ponceño
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We are agreed with the conrt below that the facts and conclusions to be drawn in this case are more or less as follows : The Cayuga Linen & Cotton Mills, Inc., a corporation of New York, with its principal office at Albany, New York, presented a complaint before the District Conrt of San Juan
The defendant made some denials, and the case was at issue on the 16th of September, 1927, and then, after various motions on the part of the plaintiff, the case was finally set for the 27th of January, 1928.. The court then goes on to set out the evidence that was submitted by the parties, and then held that the following facts had been proved: That the Cayuga Linen & Cotton Mills, Inc., of New York, sold to the Crédito y Ahorro Ponceño, of Cayey, Puerto Eico, through the firm of Fernández & Pérez, of San Juan, Puerto Eico, twenty boxes of cloth to wrap up tobacco, etc.; that the merchandise the object of the sale was shipped on the port of Baltimore, State of Maryland, ‘U.S.A., consigned to the defendant at the port of San Juan, Puerto Eico, and that this merchandise, when it was opened in Puerto Eico and examined by the defendant, proved to'be damaged, inasmuch as it was completely soaked with water (mojada con agua) and proved to be worthless. It was an admitted fact by the parties that Fernández & Pérez were the agents and representatives of the complainant in Puerto Eico, and that the
The court then proceeded to discuss the abbreviations “f. a. s.” and “f. o. b.”, and cited authorities that these words mean “the price to be charged at the time of such delivery”. The court said that there was no doubt that the initials “f. a. s.” were used in connection with the price of the merchandise, and not to indicate the place of delivery. Necessarily, the court and everybody else in the case agreed that if the contract contemplated a formal delivery at the side of the vessel, the defendant would be responsible. The court held that there was no special agreement to this effect, and therefore, the condition would have to be determined from the proof. The court showed that the contract said that the merchandise be shipped to the Crédito y Ahorro Ponceño of Cayey, Puerto Rico, consigned to the port of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and that until the complainant delivered the merchandise in the port of Puerto Rico there was no formal delivery, and the title remained in the complainant, and citing from 24 R.C.L. 47, the court uses the English words “The risk follows the title”.
As a final conclusion the court said that the defendant was not obliged to accept the goods because the contract called for a delivery in November and they were not delivered until January, 1926.
The appellant says that there was no evidence that Fer-nández &; Pérez were the agents of the complainant, but Mr. Fernández himself took the stand and gave evidence tending to show that he was such general agent.
Now, while there is a general principle of law that the declarations of an agent are not competent to prove the agency, this only applies to declarations made out of court when quoted by others, and an agent is perfectly competent to testify as to his agency, although the weight of his testimony is a different matter, especially with respect to the extent of the agency. That an agent may so testify is a conclusion to be derived from the following authorities: Render et al. v. Ragan et al., 102 Pac. 427; Joslyn v. Cadillac Automobile Co., 177 Fed. 863; 2 C. J. 933, where it is said: “The rule that the declarations of an agent are, as against his principal, inadmissible to prove the fact of his agency does not apply to his testimony as a witness on the trial in which such fact is in issue. ’ ’
Perhaps in some of our opinions we have not made this distinction as carefully as it should have been, because the matter was heretofore never directly involved. For example, in Orange Rice Milling Co. v. Barasorda, 40 P.R.R. 480, 482, we said that “Aside from the general principle that
In tbe present case not only tbe declarations of Mr. Fer-nández, who was tbe principal witness in tbe case, bnt tbe whole evidence tended to show that Fernandez & Pérez were sncb general agents of tbe plaintiff, and that their every act was in tbe interest of tbe said plaintiff. It is trne that before tbe delivered goods were returned to them, tbe defendant through its agent wrote a letter to them asking them to take charge of tbe goods. But a reading of tbe evidence convinces us that by this letter tbe defendant did not make Fer-nández & Pérez its own agent, but that Fernández & Pérez, who sold tbe goods originally, took charge of them in tbe name of tbe plaintiff, and we also conclude that they bad authority so to do.
We have no question that tbe words “f. a. s.” or “f. o. b.” when used in connection with tbe price, as in this case, do not serve to transfer tbe title. If any doubt there was, we should still be inclined to bold that tbe purchaser should have some intervention in determining tbe carrier who is to be bis agent, and tbe carrier in this case as named, by tbe parties was to be from tbe port of New York, and not from tbe port of Baltimore. Tbe very authorities quoted by tbe appellant tend to show these conclusions, at least in great part.
We have no question that tbe intention not to transfer tbe title was revealed by tbe sending of a draft and a bill of lading to tbe National City Bank. We have no doubt at all that tbe merchandise arrived damaged and that tbe defendant bad a right to refuse to receive it. Likewise, we agree with tbe court that tbe merchandise was returned at tbe instance or with tbe full consent of Fernández & Pérez, who were tbe
Another assignment of error goes to the fact- that there was some evidence tending to show that the defendant retained a part of the goods. In this regard the evidence also showed that the defendant refused to accept the delivery and, as the appellee points out, there was no satisfactory evidence of the amount of undamaged goods actually retained, or the price thereof, or what amount was contained in the two boxes supposed to be held by the defendant. The appellant does not put us in a position to determine the amount if the defendant was liable therefor.
The first assignment of error says that the District Court of Ponce abused its discretion in not postponing the setting, of the case made motu proprio by the court and refusing to give sufficient time to the complainant to obtain by way of depositions the testimony of essential witnesses who did not reside in Puerto Rico. We shall give- this assignment of error no great amount of attention, because we are entirely satisfied that the complainant failed to show the importance of this testimony, and more especially, we do not see how the proposed depositions could have changed, the result of the case. Formally, we do not think the appellant can complain of the exercise of the court’s discretion in refusing to postpone the trial of the. case when the same had been in issue for several months. We would acquit the counsel of any responsibility for their failure to obtain the depositions before, as the record discloses that they made every effort to obtain them. Either with respect to this assignment of error or a similar one, the appellant complains that the court had in point of fact agreed upon a postponement, and then changed its mind without giving the plaintiff a five-days’ notice, or something to the effect of a lack of a five-days’ notice. We
Neither do we find that the court committed error in refusing to suspend a trial to obtain the statement of another witness who was then at Coamo Springs. We may simply say that the plaintiff does not convince us that the court abused its discretion in refusing to continue the case in the midst of the trial.
Perhaps we have not touched upon some of the points' raised by the appellant, but our reading of the record and the briefs convinces us that the judgment in any event would have to be affirmed.
The judgment appealed from will be affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.