Title: Nicholson v. Jones

State: oregon

Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court

Document:

Affirmed March 26, 1952.
*408 A.C. Allen argued the cause for appellant. On the brief were Allen & Roberts, of Portland.
Carlton R. Reiter argued the cause for respondent. On the brief were Stern & Reiter, of Portland, and Stanley J. Mitchell, of Oregon City.
Before HAY, Acting Chief Justice, and ROSSMAN, LUSK, LATOURETTE, WARNER and TOOZE, Justices.
AFFIRMED.
LUSK, J.
1. This was an action to recover damages for breach of a contract to sell and deliver logs. Plaintiff, purchaser in the contract, had a verdict and judgment from which the defendant has appealed. There is no bill of exceptions, and we are therefore limited in our consideration of the case to the question of the sufficiency of the pleadings. St. Clair v. Jelinek, 187 Or 151, 157, 210 P2d 563, and cases there cited; Bridges v. Multnomah County, 92 Or 214, 216, 180 P 505.
The amended complaint on which the case was tried contains three causes of action, but it is only the first cause of action which the defendant has challenged. Omitting formal portions, the first cause of action reads:
The prayer asks for damages on the first cause of action in the sum of $15,417.23.
The contract, referred to in the pleading as Exhibit A, recites that the first party (defendant) is the owner of certain described land in Wasco County, Oregon, and of the standing timber thereon, and that the second party (plaintiff), the owner of a mobile lumber mill, desires to install said mill on the real property of the *410 first party and to purchase from the first party logs to be cut by the first party on the premises theretofore mentioned. It is then provided:
For the purpose of determining the question here presented it is unnecessary to set forth the remaining provisions of the contract.
2-7. No demurrer or motion was filed to the amended complaint. The first attempt to question its sufficiency was by a motion for a new trial, based upon the ground, among others, that "the plaintiff's complaint, in his first cause of action, fails to state a cause of action against the defendant." This is no different than if the point had been raised for the first time in this court. In that situation "a complaint, however defectively it may phrase a cause, can turn aside the best worded attack. It is vulnerable to a postponed attack only as it wholly fails to state a cause of suit or of action, as the case may be. When the attack is tardy, *411 everything inferable from the language actually used is deemed pleaded." McDonough v. Southern Or. Mining Co., 177 Or 136, 155, 159 P2d 829, 161 P2d 786, 164 ALR 788. In Booth v. Moody, 30 Or 222, 225, 46 P 884, the court, speaking through Mr. Justice ROBERT S. BEAN, said that a verdict will cure formal defects in a pleading, and continued:
See, also, Duby v. Hicks, 105 Or 27, 34, 209 P 156; Creecy v. Joy, 40 Or 28, 32, 66 P 295. The foregoing rules have been so many times announced and are so well known that it would be useless to multiply citations.
8. Defendant complains of three allegedly fatal defects in the first cause of action. The first consists of *412 a failure to allege a breach of contract. The argument, as we understand it, is that the plaintiff seeks to recover damages because the defendant failed to deliver 50,000 feet of logs per week in accordance with the terms of the contract, but that the defendant's obligation in this regard was limited by the quantity of "merchantable timber upon the premises" and that, therefore, it was necessary for the plaintiff to allege that 50,000 feet of logs per week were available and could have been delivered. The complaint, it is said, contains no such allegation. Assuming that the construction placed upon the contract by the defendant is correct, we think that the allegation in Paragraph II of the first cause of action "That during said time, [i.e., between June 1, 1949, and December 1, 1949] under the terms of the contract, the defendant should have furnished the plaintiff a minimum of 1,200,000 board feet of logs," is sufficient to meet the defendant's objection, coming as it does for the first time in this court and after verdict. It may be properly inferred from this language that 1,200,000 board feet of logs were available for delivery; otherwise the duty to have delivered them, which must be considered to be admitted, could not have existed; and, "while this allegation is perhaps a conclusion of law, it is nevertheless an attempt to state a material fact." Creecy v. Joy, supra, 40 Or 33.
The second objection is based upon the alleged failure of the plaintiff to allege that he gave notice to the defendant of the breach within a reasonable time after the plaintiff knew of it. Section 71-149, OCLA, provides:
9, 10. In Maxwell Co. v. So. Ore. Gas Corp., 158 Or 168, 175, 74 P2d 594, 75 P2d 9, 114 ALR 697, we held that this requirement of notice is imposed as a condition precedent to the right of the vendee to recover for breach of warranty, and that the giving of notice must be pleaded and proved by the party seeking to recover. While the plaintiff has not formally alleged that he gave such a notice, he has alleged the following in Paragraph III of the first cause of action: "That defendant though often demanded by the plaintiff to furnish the minimum footage required under the contract, failed, refused and neglected so to do." The plaintiff could not have made such a demand without notifying the defendant of the breach. The allegation is broad enough to let in evidence of such notice and of the time or times when it was given; and it must be presumed, after verdict and in the absence of a bill of exceptions, that such evidence was received, and that it showed that the notice was given within a reasonable time after knowledge of the breach on the part of the plaintiff. Booth v. Moody, supra. The allegation, therefore, is sufficient when the attack is made for the first time in this court.
So far as the objections just considered are concerned, this is not a case of a total absence from the pleading of facts constituting a cause of action; but merely of defective statements of essential facts.
11. The final point of objection is that the claim of damages is insufficiently alleged for the reason that, *414 as it is asserted, the damages sought to be recovered are not the necessary result of the breach, but are special damages which must be specially pleaded. This, however, would not even have been a good ground for demurrer had one been filed in the circuit court. The rule in this regard is thus stated in Sunnyside Land Co. v. Bridge Ry. Co., 20 Or 544, 546, 26 P 835:
To the same effect see Feeney & Bremer Co. v. Stone, 89 Or 360, 381, 171 P 569, 174 P 152; Pacific Bridge Co. v. Oregon Hassam Co., 67 Or 576, 579, 134 P 1184; Oregon v. Portland Gen. Elec. Co., 52 Or 502, 513, 95 P 722, 98 P 160; 41 Am Jur, Pleading, 356, § 95.
We are of the opinion that, as against the present attack, the amended complaint is sufficient, and the judgment is, therefore, affirmed.