Cuero Cotton Oil & Mfg. Co. v. Feeders' Supply Co.
Cuero Cotton Oil & Mfg. Co. v. Feeders' Supply Co.
Opinion of the Court
This suit was instituted by ap-pellee, Feeders’ Supply Company, against the appellant, Cuero Cotton Oil & Manufacturing Company, in the Forty-Eighth district court of Tarrant county to recover damages alleged to have been sustained by the alleged breach by appellant of an alleged express contract for the sale by appellant and purchase by appellee of certain cotton seed oil mill products. Appellant duly filed its pléa of privilege to be sued in De Witt county, its domicile, and subject thereto answered by demurrer and plea, denying the existence of the alleged contract. In its original petition, plaintiff alleged that the contract was made over the telephone, and by its terms “plaintiff purchased from defendant 300 tons of prime screened cracked cake or meal, 200 tons for prompt shipment, which expression is a common one in this sort of business, and jneans within ten days from date of purchase, and 100 tons to be delivered at any time up to September 15, 1916.” . Plaintiff admitted in course of trial that none of the exceptions to exclusive venue in the county of the domicile of defendant existed in this cause, except that it was not admitted that the exceptions contained in subdivision 24, article 1830, Vernon’s Sayles’ Tex. Civ. Statutes, did not exist. This article reads in part as follows:
“Suits against any private- corporation, association or joint stock company may be” maintained “in any county in which the cause of action, or a part thereof, arose, or in which such corporation, association or company has an agency or representative, or in which its original office is situated.”
From a judgment in favor of plaintiff in the sum of $525, the defendant has appealed.
Dumas testified in part as follows:
“I was representing the Feeders’ Supply Company during the month of August, 1916, and up to the present time, in the capacity of local manager. In August, 1916, I received from the Cuero Cotton Oil & Manufacturing Company the following letter: ‘Cuero, Texas, August 8, o1916, The Feeders’ Supply Company, Ft. Worth, Texas — Gentlemen: We offer you, subject to your immediate wire acceptance and prior sales, all or any part of 300 tons of prime screened cracked cake or meal, at your option, for August and first half of September shipment at $28.75 per ton, f. o. b. Cuero, net to us. We guarantee this meal or cake to have 51 per cent, protein and fat combined. This price is strictly in line with the export market. Yours very truly, Cuero Cotton Oil & Mfg. Co., per Thornton Hamilton.’ * * * I called Mr. Hamilton over the phone and asked him if he could give me some of the cake he had quoted me, prompt shipment, as I had some orders on my desk, and’ needed some for prompt shipment, and he told me. he could. The first thing when I called him, I asked him if the offer stated in the letter was still open, or if he had sold the stuff, and he said he had not, and when he agreed to give me some on prompt shipment, I told him that I would take the entire amount of 300 tons, as mentioned in his letter, at the price stated in the letter.
“After I told Mr. Hamilton I would take this cake or meal, he said he had sent Ms analysis to the chemist, but had not received a report from it; that during the years previous he had made some shipments as prime that did not grade up- to prime and that he came near to getting into trouble about it, and that he did not want to get into trouble this time; if he was not making prime, he did not want to ship it as prime, and I told him that I did not want it unless prime, and that I would give him the privilege of canceling, provided his analysis showed that he was making a lower grade than prime meal or cake. I asked him when he expected to receive his analysis and he says, ‘Tomorrow or not later than the day following.’ I then told him that I would give him until the *81 day following, which would be the 11th, and if he found he was making a lower grade than prime to wire me; otherwise I would consider the purchase made. I did not receive any wire from Mr. Hamilton in regard to the matter, nor any information from him as to whether his cake or meal was prime or bettér, until it must have been the 12th of August, that I received a letter from him, after I had wired him on the 11th; I then received a letter from him in which he stated that the cake was prime or better. I never received any wire from Mr. Hamilton to the effect he was not making prime cake.
“After I had this conversation over the phone with Mr. Hamilton, I waited until the 11th, which was the time limit which I had given him to hear from his analysis, and then, not hearing anything from him to the contrary, I wired • him in orders for three cars, for prompt shipment, concerning which I had phoned him. s * jn reply to this telegram I received, a telegram from the Cuero Mills, in which he sáid he had no contract. It is my recollection I received that wire on the 12th. I never received 'any of this cake or meal which I purchased from the Cuero Oil & Manufacturing Company. I -made a further demand on the Cuero Cotton Oil & Manufacturing Company for this shipment, after my telegram .above referred to. * * * In this conversation ovér the phone; Mr. Hamilton told me • he could let me have as much as 150 or 200 tons of prompt, and I told him I did not need that amount. The balance of the cake was to be shipped the last half of August or the first of September, at $28.75 per ton.”
While jurists have found some difficulty in defining the term “cause of action,” yet, in construing the expression in the subdivision of the statute upon which the claim of venue in Tarrant county is based it has been held that a “cause of action” is made up of the contract and its breach. Railway v. Hill, 63 Tex. 381, 51 Am. Rep. 642; Iron Works v. Beeves & Co., 43 Tex. Civ. App. 254, 95 S. W. 739. The breach of the contract did not take place in Tarrant county, because the breach, if any, arose upon the failure to deliver f. o. b. cars at Cuero within the time specified.
“In my conversation with Mr. Hamilton, in the first place, he told me he could let me have as much as 150 or 200 tons of prompt if I wanted it, and I told him that I had these orders or inquiries that I had to fill with ‘prompt,’ and that is the reason I called him over the phone, was to see if he could give me some prompt with which to fill these orders.”
As was said in the case of Washington v. Rosario Min. & Mill. Co., 28 Tex. Civ. App. 430, 67 S. W. 459:
“The rule is unvarying, and the authorities uniform, that in order to constitute an acceptance of an option, or an offer to sell, the acceptance must be unconditional. There must be no new terms imposed, and no departure from those offered.”
Ordinarily, where a delivery is to be made within a certain period, say within a designated month, the seller has until the last day of the ‘named period to make delivery. 35 Cyc. 177; Magnolia Cotton Oil Co. v. Continental Oil & Cotton Co., 183 S. W. 10. Therefore, if Dumas, over the phone, stipulated that in order for him to accept the offer contained in the letter he must have a part of the 300 tons as a “prompt” shipment, such stipulation constituted a counter offer on his part to pay the price required by appellant, if a part of the shipment could be made “prompt.” The agreement on the part of Hamilton, acting for appellant, to this *82 change would consummate the contract, and ,this agreement or acceptance having been made at Cuero, the venue would properly be in De Witt county, even under the rule that a contract over the telephone is consummated in the county where the acceptance is given. Bank of Tolo v. Sperry Flour Co., supra. But the evidence justifies a conclusion sustaining the judgment of the trial court that Dumas, upon calling up Hamilton at Cuero, first asked him if he could ship a part of the 300 tons as “prompt,” and that Hamilton replied that he could, 150 "to 200 tons; that thereupon Dumas agreed to take the 300 tons at the price made in the letter of August Sth. The testimony of Dumas heretofore quoted in this opinion, as well as other portions of his testimony of like import, would justify that conclusion. Dumas testified:
“The terms of the purchase which X made over the phone, in my conversation with Mr. Hamilton, were in accordance with a letter I had received from the Cuero Mill. ‘$28.75, f. o. b. Cuero;' shipment the last half of August or the first half of September.’ I cannot give the conversation verbatim, but I have stated the substance of it; it was in accordance with the terms specified in the letter, with the added agreement that he was to let me have some of the cake for ‘prompt’ shipment; X had some ■orders on my desk which called for prompt shipment. But with that exception the contract over the phone was in accordance with the letter from the Cuero Cotton Oil & Manufacturing Company. * * * ”
Appellee urges that at the time of the phone conversation between Dumas and Hamilton Dumas merely inquired as to whether, under the offer as made by appellant in the letter, a sufficient shipment of “prompt” would he allowed to fill the orders that ap-pellee then had on hand. And that an inquiry does not constitute a counter offer. Appellee cites Stevenson v. McLean, 6 Eng. Rul. Cas. 82, 49 L. J. Q. B. N. S. 701. This •case is cited in 9 Cyc. in a footnote on page 269. The text of the Cyc. there uses the following language:
“If an offer is accepted as made, the acceptance is not conditional and' does not vary from the offer, because of inquiries whether the of-ferer will change his terms, or as to future acts, or the expression of a hope or suggestion,” etc. I
But even if the judgment cannot he sustained on this theory, we are of the opinion that it should ■ be sustained on the ground that the contract was consummated by the acceptance of Dumas given in Tarrant county. It is true that no right of action arose until the breach had occurred, and that the alleged breach occurred in De Witt county, arising by reason of the failure of the defendant company to load f. o. b. the. shipment of three cars ordered by plaintiff. “The right of action springs from the cause of action, but does not accrue until all of the facts which constitute the cause have occurred.” 1 C. J. p. 946, and the authorities cited under footnote 38; 1 Bouvier’s Dict. 436. That the defendant may not by his own wrongful breach determine the venue of a cause of action arising under a contract .consummated in a county other than that of defend-ant’s domicile is decided in Peach River Lumber Co. v. Ayers (writ of error denied) 41 Tex. Civ. App. 334, 91 S. W. 387, cited in 40 Cyc. p. 84. See Harvey v. Parkersburg Ins. Co., 37 W. Va. 272, 16 S. E. 580.
In discussing the meaning of the term “arose” or “arises” used in connection with the expressions “the cause of action arose,” or the “cause 'of action arises,” the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, in Doughty v. Funk, 15 Okl. 643, 84 Pac. 484, 4 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1029, says:
“We cannot, therefore, in determining the meaning of the phrase under consideration, hold that a cause of action has arisen only when the remedy and the right occur at the same time. But we do hold that a cause of action arises when the obligation was created which gave rise to a right of action as soon as such right accrued thereon.”
The question of venue here involved is not one entirely without difficulty, but we have concluded that under the authorities cited the trial court properly overruled defendant’s plea of privilege. All assignments are overruled, and the judgment is affirmed.
Affirmed.
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