Dexter & Carpenter, Inc. v. Fillmore & Slade
Dexter & Carpenter, Inc. v. Fillmore & Slade
Opinion of the Court
The only question in dispute in this case is the price per ton to be paid for two carloads of coal received by the defendants from the plaintiff, the latter contending it was to be six dollars, and the former that it was to be five dollars.
It appeared that on November 14, 1916, the plaintiff sold to defendants two cars of coal which it then stated were at or near Rotterdam Junction, New York, for the price of six dollars and fifty cents per ton. The plaintiff, at that time, gave defendants the numbers of said two cars and agreed to deliver the cars to the defendants. Immediately on the same day the plaintiff instructed the agent of the railroad at that place to forward those two cars of coal to the defendants, but they were never delivered. No claim was made by either party at the trial of this case that the defendants had at any time purchased of the plaintiff any coal except the two cars mentioned. Defendant Slade testified that during the negotiations for this coal, the plaintiff offered bituminous coal at the mines at five dollars a ton, and that in response to such offer he told the plaintiff that they could not use any of that coal, and besides the price was too high.
Defendant Slade, when testifying for the defence, was asked in direct examination if this coal was received under the expectation that five dollars per ton would be the price. Objection being made, the evidence was excluded and exception saved. In this ruling, there was no error. The defendants were by law bound to pay the contract price; and their expectation, when they received the coal, that the price would be less, does not affect the plaintiff’s rights in the matter.
Defendants excepted to the charge that (in effect) if the coal was received and used by the defendants after they received the plaintiff’s letter of November 29, in which the price was stated to be six dollars per ton, the defendants are bound to pay that sum per ton as the contract price. This exception is without force. It seems from defendants’ own showing that on November 14, the time when the plaintiff offered to let them have coal at the mines for five dollars a ton, the offer was at once rejected by them. So if this offer was ever made, (which was denied by plaintiff,) its immediate rejection ended it. It had no connection with the later proposition to let the defendants
It is urged that the price of the coal was a question for the jury. But this is not so. The price was exclusively fixed in the invoices and in the letter of November 29. The defendants ’ acceptance thereof was by their unequivocal acts of receiving and using the coal, with full knowledge of the plaintiff’s price therefor. It was a question of law for the court.
Judgment affirmed.
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