Mull v. Touchberry
Mull v. Touchberry
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
The appeal is by the defendant from the charge of the Court. The action is on an unpaid check given by the *424 defendant to the plaintiff in part payment of an automobile. The answer alleges that the vendor sold the vendee the machine upon a special warranty, expressed in the second and third paragraphs of the second defense. Let so much of the answer be reported.
The Court submitted those warranties to the jury upon proper instructions, and the verdict was for the plaintiff. The defendant desired the Court to instruct the jury that the defendant might stand, besides on the express warranties, on that warranty implied by law, to wit, that a sound price calls for a sound article. The Court ruled that, inasmuch as the defendant had pleaded an express contract of warranty, there was no room for implication.
The challenge of that statement of the law is the major issue in the case. The argument of the appellant is:
“The rule excluding the defense of implied warranty, where an express warranty exists, had its origin in the rule of evidence excluding éverything except that which was embraced in the express warranty, which was usually in writing. Stucky v. Clyburn, Cheves 186, 34 Am. Dec. 590; McLaughlin v. Horton, 1 Hill 383.”
It is true that in the cases cited, and in most of our reported cases, the warranty was expressed in writing; and the Courts have in some of the cases denied the operation of an implied warranty, upon the ground that the allowance of it would impeach the written word. It is not apparent how the invocation of a contract implied by law can be called the proof of another contract than that which the parties have reduced to writing. Aside from that question, however, it was clearly and succinctly stated as early as 1833 that “The soundness of the (article) is the subject of express warranty; it shows that that was the subject of the contract, and the plaintiff’s liability cannot be extended beyond it, either by parol or legal implication.” (The italics are supplied.) Johnson, J., in McLaughlin v. Horton, 1 Hill, 383.
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The appellant argues that the rule we have stated shuts the defendant up to confine his defense to an express warranty; but the defendant shut himself up when he alleged the parties made a particular agreement.
All the other exceptions are to language quoted by the Court from the books at, we infer, the suggestion of the plaintiff’s counsel. In each instance the Court properly modified the quotations, so as to rob them of any appearance of a charge upon the facts.
The judgment is affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Mull Et Al. v. Touchberry
- Cited By
- 8 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- 1. Contracts — On Express Undertaking Matters Necessary to Contract Are Implied. — From an expressed undertaking, the law will also imply whatever the parties reasonably may be supposed to have meant, and whatever is essential to render the transaction fair and honest. 2. Sales — Express Warranty of Quality Excludes Implied Warranty. — Where, by the contract of sale of an automobile, the seller expressly warranted the car to be first-class in all respects, and fully worth the value paid, such express warranty or undertaking excluded any implied warranty of quality.