Clauson v. Goodrich
Clauson v. Goodrich
Opinion of the Court
The following opinion was filed January 10, 1888:
This was an action to recover the value of saw-logs sold and delivered by the respondent to the appellant. Upon the trial of the action at the circuit, the jury found for the plaintiff, and assessed his damages at $349.26. The appellant moved for a new trial for errors of the court in admitting evidence on the part of the respondent, and because the verdict was not supported by the evidence. The motion was denied, and the appellant duly excepted, and, after judgment was entered upon the verdict, appealed to this court.
On the trial, it appeared that the plaintiff had delivered the logs sold at the mill of the Ashland Lumber Company, and it also appeared that the defendant ivas to take the risk of their loss or destruction after the delivery at such mill, although the quantity of timber in the logs was to be determined, after the logs were sawed, by the mill measurement. The defendant had paid for all the logs sawed at the mill
On the part of the defendant, it was admitted that one of the rafts was broken up and scattered as claimed by the plaintiff, but he insisted that all the scattered logs were collected by him and brought back to the mill, and that all delivered by the plaintiff at the mill were in fact sawed by the mill, and measured and paid for by him before the action was brought. The only question submitted to the jury was whether any of the logs delivered at the mill by the plaintiff for the defendant were scattered and lost and consequently not sawed and measured at the mill. On that question the jury found that logs to the value of $349.26 were so scattered and lost, and consequently were not paid for by the defendant.
The learned counsel for the appellant insisted, upon the argument of this appeal, that the trial court erred in permitting the plaintiff to show that any of the logs were in fact lost. The ground of this objection to the evidence is based solely upon the language of the complaint. The counsel for the appellant claims that the complaint is for the recovery of the purchase price for the logs sawed at the Ashland mill, and not for the recovery of the logs delivered by the plaintiff to the defendant at the mill. "We do not think the complaint should be construed as claimed by the counsel for the appellant. The language, of the complaint is as follows: “That on or about the 15th day of March, A. D. 1886, R. Slatterly sold to the defendant, W. IT. Goodrich., 700,000 feet of merchantable pine saw-logs, at the agreed price of $5.80 per thousand feet, which sale was .partly in writing and partly by parol; that by the terms of
The only other question in the case is one of pure fact, viz.: Were any of the logs lost? The question was fairly submitted to the jury, and there was certainly some evidence from which the jury might honestly have come to the conclusion that some of them were scattered and lost. Thelearned circuit judge, who heard all the evidence and saw all the witnesses, having declined to set aside the verdict upon the ground that it was against the weight of evidence,
By the Court.— The judgment of the circuit court is' affirmed.
A motion for a rehearing was denied February 28, 1888.
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