Case ID: us-ct-cl_18/html/0760-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Woods,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

JOHN L. MERRIAM v. THE UNITED STATES.
    (107 U. S. R., on appeal from 14 C. Cls. R., 289.)
    A contract binds the claimant to supply at the military station at Bismarck “ 600,000 poánds, more,or less, of oats, at |2.23^ per 100 pounds, or such other quantity, more or less, as may be required from time to-time for the wants of said station between the 1st July, 1877, and the 31st December, 1877, in such quantities and at such times as the receiving officer may require.” He delivers and is paid for the 600,000 pounds specifically named in the contract. But he is not required by the receiving officer to supply more, though he is ready and willing to do so; and the quartermaster who made the contract buys oats of other parties for the wants of the station. The claimant insists that he was entitled to supply them, and brings his action fo,r the profits which he might have made.
    Held by the Court of Claims, dismissing the petition:
    I.A contract which binds the contractor to supply at a military station “9600,000 pounds, more or less, of oats, or such other quantity, more or less, as may be required from time to time for the wants of said station between the 1st July and the 31st December, in such quantities and at such times as the receiving officer may require,” does not. entitle him to furnish all the oats which may be needed at the station; nor, after he has supplied the specified quantity of 600,000-pounds, does it preclude the defendants from buying from other parties.
    II.The word “or” in a contract will not be construed to mean “and”' w-here it connects propositions reasonable in the alternative.
    III.Where a contract is partly in print and partly in writing, the written portion will be deemed the part more carefully considered by the parties when they made the contract.
    
      IV. When the terms of a contract are ambiguous, the parties may adopt such a construction as they expressly or by tacit concurrence agree upon; and after one of them has incurred expense or otherwise acted on the faith of it, the other cannot set up a new interpretation.
    Held by the Supreme Court:
    The judgment of the Court of Claims dismissing the petition was right and is affirmed.
   Opinion by

Mr. Justice Woods,

resting the decision principally upon the same ground as, that stated above by the Court of Claims as the first point.