Source: http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/283/283mass383.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 12:12:32+00:00

Document:
GEO. W. WILCOX, INC. vs. SHELL EASTERN PETROLEUM PRODUCTS, INC.
Present: RUGG, C.J., CROSBY, WAIT, DONAHUE, & LUMMUS, JJ.
(2) The verdict rightly was ordered entered.
contract later to be made was intended to be the contract between the parties and not the instrument which was the basis of the action.
CONTRACT. Writ dated December 26, 1929.
In the Superior Court, the action was tried before Cox, J. Material evidence and proceedings at the trial are described in the opinion. After the recording, with leave reserved, of a verdict for the plaintiff in the sum of $50,083, the judge ordered entered a verdict for the defendant. The plaintiff alleged exceptions.
C. Fairhurst, (J. T. Bartlett with him,) for the plaintiff.
S. H. Pillsbury, (F. E. Allison with him,) for the defendant.
by its president and in the name of the defendant by one Algar, who was an assistant district manager of the defendant. The plaintiff has brought suit on this instrument. The answer of the defendant includes a denial of the signature, execution and delivery of the instrument by the defendant and a specific denial of the authority of Algar to sign, seal, execute or deliver it.
The case was tried before a jury in the Superior Court. In answer to written questions submitted by the judge the jury found that Algar had authority to bind the defendant by signing the instrument in its behalf, that the plaintiff was excused by acts of the defendant from procuring a release from the plaintiff's contract with the Gulf Refining Company as required by the plaintiff's contract with the defendant and that the defendant broke its contract with the plaintiff, the plaintiff not being in default. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff in the sum of $50,083, the judge having reserved leave with the assent of the jury under G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 231, s. 120, to enter a contrary verdict. On motion of the defendant the judge entered a verdict for the defendant. The plaintiff's exception to this action of the judge is here presented by a bill of exceptions. The defendant has also filed a bill of exceptions setting forth exceptions taken by it to the refusal of the judge to give certain requested rulings and to the admission of certain testimony during the course of the trial. The defendant agrees that if the plaintiff's exceptions are overruled the exceptions taken by the defendant become immaterial.
ice in the summer of 1930. A few days after the day when the instrument was signed the president of the plaintiff corporation went with his attorney to the office of the Gulf Refining Company in Boston and requested a release from the contract. He went there again in November, 1929, and a representative of that company estimated that the plaintiff would have to pay $25,000 or $30,000 to get out of its contract but no definite offer was made. No release was ever obtained.
the parties contemplated a continuing succession of sales by the defendant and the subject of delivery was manifestly of consequence to both. There is no provision as to the quantity of the defendant's products the plaintiff was obligated to take in a given period of time which might throw light on the understanding of the parties as to deliveries nor is there other evidence by which the uncertainty might be made certain. The instrument provides nothing as to the time or terms of payment by the plaintiff. The contemplated transactions of the parties were of such a character that a binding agreement would be expected to contain provisions both as to deliveries and as to payments. In their absence the record does not supply evidence of circumstances or of custom from which the terms of an agreement as to these matters can be inferred.
"It is essential to the existence of a contract that its nature and the extent of its obligations be certain." Knowles v. Griswold, 252 Mass. 172, 175. Lyman v. Robinson, 14 Allen 242, 254. It is not enough if parties negotiating have agreed upon certain important terms if there has been no agreement on other essential elements of the undertaking, Sibley v. Felton, 156 Mass. 273, 276, although a contract is not necessarily unenforceable because the parties agree that the details of certain of its terms shall be left to be fixed at a future time or by the happening of later events. Evers v. Gilfoil, 247 Mass. 219. Kirkley v. F. H. Roberts Co. 268 Mass. 246, 252. The difficulty here is that the instrument sued on is silent as to material matters important in its interpretation for the ascertainment of the obligations of the parties and the evidence of the circumstances surrounding its making is not such as to permit by inference the supplying of the lack. "Many of the essential terms necessarily involved in the proposed undertaking are not set forth and without them no enforceable contract is shown." Kaufman v. Lennox, 265 Mass. 487, 489, and cases cited. Young v. Titcomb, 268 Mass. 14, 19.
would be prevented from recovery. Since the plaintiff's exceptions must be overruled the defendant's exceptions become immaterial.

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