Case Title: Professional Lens Plan, Inc. v. Polaris Leasing Corp.

Citation: 238 Kan. 384, 710 P.2d 1297

Docket Number: 57,947

State: kansas

Court: Kansas Supreme Court

Date: 1985-12-06T00:00:00Z

Document:
238 Kan. 384 (1985)
710 P.2d 1297
PROFESSIONAL LENS PLAN, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
POLARIS LEASING CORPORATION, Defendant and Third Party Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
IMPACT SYSTEMS, a corporation, and OHIO SCIENTIFIC, a corporation, and OKIDATA CORPORATION, Third Party Defendants-Appellees.
No. 57,947

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed December 6, 1985.
John C. Fay, of Manhattan, argued the cause and was on the brief for plaintiff-appellant.
*385 Donn J. Everett, of Manhattan, argued the cause, and Judith E. Pottorff, of Manhattan, was with him on the brief for defendant-appellee Ohio Scientific.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
MILLER, J.:
This is an appeal by the plaintiff, Professional Lens Plan, Inc., from an order entered by the Riley District Court granting a motion for summary judgment in favor of the defendant, Ohio Scientific, a corporation. This is the second appearance of this case in this court. See Professional Lens Plan, Inc. v. Polaris Leasing Corp., 234 Kan. 742, 675 P.2d 887 (1984). The sole issue here is whether the record establishes that Impact Systems was the agent of Ohio Scientific. The trial court found that it did not.
Early in 1979, Professional Lens Plan, Inc., (PLP, or the plaintiff) engaged Loren H. Shellabarger to help select a computer system. He had wide experience in the field and, while he had no detailed knowledge of Ohio Scientific's computers, he was aware of them as well as forty or fifty others. During Shellabarger's search, Ohio Scientific (OSI) ran several large display ads in the microcomputer media. The ads listed a telephone number. Shellabarger called the OSI number and was referred to two dealers, one of which was Impact Systems, a corporation in Lee's Summit, Missouri. He visited several times over a two- or three-month period with Gary Comens, president and principal owner of Impact.
Ultimately, Shellabarger presented five computer systems to Dr. Price, one of the principals of PLP, and Price selected a computer manufactured by OSI. An order was placed with Impact. Impact did not carry computers in stock, but ordered a C3-B microcomputer from OSI, and an NEC printer and a terminal from Tekaids. The computer was delivered in September 1979. For tax purposes, PLP leased the computer from Polaris Leasing Corporation; Polaris paid Impact for the system but had nothing to do with the selection of or negotiation for the system. Impact delivered and installed the system at the plaintiff's place of business in Manhattan, Kansas. Problems surfaced immediately and the computer never worked properly.
PLP initially sued Polaris for cancellation of the lease contract and damages. Polaris counterclaimed for the payments due on the lease. Plaintiff settled that action by paying $20,000 to Polaris in order to resolve its counterclaim. Plaintiff sought and was *386 granted permission to amend its pleadings to bring an action directly against Impact, OSI, and Okidata, the manufacturer of a hard disc, one of the major component parts of the computer.
In 1984 we heard an interlocutory appeal by PLP and Okidata. We quote from the opinion for the statement of the issues and the resolution thereof:
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Our opinion was filed in the district court of Riley County on February 8, 1984. On May 4, the plaintiff filed an amended petition alleging that Impact was an agent of OSI. OSI responded by filing a motion for summary judgment together with a memorandum in support thereof. It contended that there were no facts before the court which supported plaintiff's claim that Impact was in fact an agent of OSI. Instead, it contended the facts clearly showed that Impact was simply a dealer, one who buys and sells, and that there was no agency relationship between OSI and Impact.
The trial court prepared a memorandum setting forth the facts and its ruling. The court carefully reviewed the depositions and other records before it, and indexed its findings of fact to those documents. Omitting the citations to the record, the trial court's findings of fact and conclusions of law are as follows:
"FACTS
The court then sustained OSI's motion for summary judgment against the plaintiff, and plaintiff's appeal followed.
In its findings of fact the court observed in paragraph No. 4 that plaintiff denies the claim that not only Impact Systems but anyone else who wanted to sell OSI equipment could do so, and that plaintiff contends that OSI had a system of dealers who could sell OSI equipment by payment of money by the dealers. We have carefully examined the record before us and find no evidence to substantiate plaintiff's position in this regard. There is no evidence that Impact paid OSI any money to become a dealer; Impact simply paid for the equipment it ordered. Impact's *390 president, Gary Comens, testified, "It is wide open. Anybody can sell OSI who wants to."
We have stated many times the standards governing the entry of summary judgment. In Barnhart v. McKinney, 235 Kan. 511, 516, 682 P.2d 112 (1984), we said:
In Peoples Nat'l Bank & Trust v. Excel Corp., 236 Kan. 687, 695, 695 P.2d 444 (1985), we said:
Summary judgment is particularly appropriate where the facts are not disputed and the only questions presented are questions of law. Farmers State Bank & Trust Co. of Hays v. City of Yates Center, 229 Kan. 330, 341, 624 P.2d 971 (1981). Here, there is really no dispute as to the facts. Plaintiff contends that those facts establish an implied agency; the trial court found that they do not. The determination of what constitutes agency and whether there is any competent evidence reasonably tending to prove the existence of agency is a question of law. Henderson v. Hassur, 225 Kan. 678, 682, 594 P.2d 650 (1979).
Both parties here agree on the definition of agency as given in Walker v. Eckhardt, 122 Kan. 453, 456, 251 Pac. 1093 (1927). An agency has been defined as a contract, either express or implied, by which one of the parties confides to the other the management of some business to be transacted in his name, or on his account, and by which that other assumes to do the business and to render an account of it.
In Shawnee State Bank v. North Olathe Industrial Park, Inc., 228 Kan. 231, 236-37, 613 P.2d 1342 (1980), we said:
Plaintiff contends that Impact was either an implied or an ostensible agent of OSI. There is no evidence and no claim that any express agency agreement existed between Impact and OSI. Plaintiff simply argues that certain conduct by Ohio led it to believe that there was an agency relationship. It argues that OSI, by referring Shellabarger to two local dealers, one of whom was Impact, led him and thus his client, the plaintiff, to believe that Impact was an agent for OSI. The person at OSI with whom Shellabarger spoke referred to Impact as a dealer in all three conversations. As the trial court noted, the word "dealer" is widely used and well understood. It means a person who buys and sells. In 25A C.J.S., Dealer, p. 533, we find the following:
Black's Law Dictionary 487 (4th ed. rev. 1968), defines a dealer: "In the popular sense, one who buys to sell,  not one who buys to keep, or makes to sell." There is no representation that Impact was an exclusive dealer, since no such representation was made to Shellabarger and since Shellabarger knew that Impact was ordering part of the system from one or more other manufacturers. Comens was able to buy and sell OSI computers, but he testified that anyone who wanted to could do so. This testimony is not controverted in the record. The fact that a retail commercial enterprise offers for sale a particular product does not indicate that the retailer is the agent of the manufacturer. Similarly, the mere fact that a manufacturer informs a proposed *392 customer that a particular item may be purchased through several retailers in a particular location does not make the retailers agents of the manufacturer. We have carefully reviewed the record before us and conclude that the trial court was correct in entering summary judgment. We find no evidence to indicate either an implied or an ostensible agency.
The judgment is affirmed.