Source: https://h2o.law.harvard.edu/cases/1805
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 02:37:17+00:00

Document:
115 U.S. 188 (1885) 6 S.Ct. 12 115 U.S. 188 29 L.Ed. 366 NORRINGTON v. WRIGHT and others.1 Filed October 26, 1885.
'Sold to Messrs. Peter Wright & Sons, for account of A. Norrington & Co., London: Five thousand (5,000) tons old T iron rails, for shipment from a European port or ports, at the rate of about one thousand (1,000) tons per month, beginning February, 1880, but whole contract to be shipped before August 1, 1880, at forty-five dollars ($45.00) per ton of 2240 lbs. custom-house weight, ex ship Philadelphia. Settlement, cash, on presentation of bills accompanied by custom-house certificate of weight. Sellers to notify buyers of shipments with vessels' names as soon as known by them. Sellers not to be compelled to replace any parcel lost after shipment. Sellers, when possible, to secure to buyers right to name discharging berth of vessels at Philadelphia.
The declaration contained three counts. The first count alleged the contract to have been for the sale of about 5,000 tons of T iron rails, to be shipped at the rate of about 1,000 tons a month, beginning in February, and ending in July, 1880. The second count set forth the contract verbatim. Each of these two counts alleged that the plaintiffs in February, March, April, May, June, and July shipped the goods at the rate of about 1,000 tons a month, and notified the shipments to the defendants; and further alleged the due arrival of the goods at Philadelphia, the plaintiff's readiness to deliver the goods and bills thereof, with custom-house certificates of weight, according to the contract, and the defendants' refusal to accept them.
give, and cannot afterwards vary it if they do not conform to the contract. Our right to be notified immediately that the shipments were known is as material a provision as any other, nor can it be changed now in order to make that a performance which was no performance within the time required.' 'You ask us to determine whether we will or will not object to receive further shipments because of past defaults. We tell you we will if we are entitled to do so, and will not if we are not entitled to do so. We do not think you have the right to compel us to decide a disputed question of law to relieve you from the risk of deciding it yourself. You know quite as well as we do what is the rule and its uncertainty of application.' On June 10th Etting offered to the defendants the alternative of delivering to them one thousand tons strict measure on account of the shipments in April. This offer they immediately declined. On June 15th Etting wrote to the defendants that two cargoes, amounting to 221 tons, of the April shipments, and two cargoes, amounting to 650 tons, of the May shipments, (designated by the names of the vessels,) had been erroneously notified to them, and that about 900 tons had been shipped by a certain other vessel on account of the May shipments. On the same day the defendants replied that the notification as to April shipments could not be corrected at this late date, and after the terms of the contract had long since been broken. From the date of the contract to the time of its rescission by the defendants, the market price of such iron was lower than that stipulated in the contract, and was constantly falling. After the arrival of the cargoes, and their tender and refusal, they were sold by Etting, with the consent of the defendants, for the benefit of whom it might concern.
the damages caused by the delays in the shipments on the part of the plaintiff. But the court instructed the jury that if the defendants, at the time accepting the delivery of the cargo paid for, had no notice of the failure of the plaintiff to ship about 1,000 tons in the month of February, and immediately upon learning that fact gave notice of their intention to rescind, the verdict should be for them. The plaintiff excepted to this instruction, and, after verdict and judgment for the defendants, sued out this writ of error.
Saml. Dickson and J. C. Bullitt, for plaintiffs in error.
R. C. McMurtrie, for defendants in error.
In the contracts of merchants, time is of the essence. The time of shipment is the usual and convenient means of fixing the probable time of arrival, with a view of providing funds to pay for the goods, or of fulfilling contracts with third persons. A statement descriptive of the subject-matter, or of some material incident, such as the time or place of shipment, is ordinarily to be regarded as a warranty in the sense in which that term is used in insurance and maritime law, that is to say, a condition precedent upon the failure or non-performance of which the party aggrieved may repudiate the whole contract. Behn v. Burness, 3 Best & S. 751; Bowes v. Shand, 2 App. Cas. 455; Lowber v. Bangs, 2 Wall. 728; Davison v. Von Lingen, 113 U. S. 40; S. C. 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 346.
tity, or to require him to select part out of a greater quantity; and when the goods are to be shipped in certain proportions monthly, the seller's failure to ship the required quantity in the first month gives the buyer the same right to rescind the whole contract that he would have had if it had been agreed that all the goods should be delivered at once.
The plaintiff, instead of shipping about 1,000 tons in February and about 1,000 tons in March, as stipulated in the contract, shipped only 400 tons in February, and 885 tons in March. His failure to fulfill the contract on his part in respect to these first two installments justified the defendants in rescinding the whole contract, provided they distinctly and seasonably asserted the right of rescission. The defendants, immediately after the arrival of the March shipments, and as soon as they knew that the quantities which had been shipped in February and in March were less than the contract called for, clearly and positively asserted the right to rescind, if the law entitled them to do so. Their previous acceptance of the single cargo of 400 tons shipped in February was no waiver of this right, because it took place without notice or means of knowledge that the stipulated quantity had not been shipped in February. The price paid by them for that cargo being above the market value, the plaintiff suffered no injury by the omission of the defendants to return the iron; and no reliance was placed on that omission in the correspondence between the parties.
The case wholly differs from that of Lyon v. Bertram, 20 How. 149, in which the buyer of a specific lot of goods accepted and used part of them with full means of previously ascertaining whether they conformed to the contract. The plaintiff, denying the defendants' right to rescind, and asserting that the contract was still in force, was bound to show such performance on his part as entitled him to demand performance on their part, and, having failed to do so, cannot maintain this action.
and as a diversity in the law, as administered on the two sides of the Atlantic, concerning the interpretation and effect of commercial contracts of this kind, is greatly to be deprecated, it is proper to add that upon a careful examination of the cases referred to they do not appear to us to establish any rule inconsistent with our conclusion.
fore the pleas are an answer to the action.' 5 Hurl. & N. 28. So in Coddington v. Paleologo, L. R. 2 Exch. 193, while there was a division of opinion upon the question whether a contract to supply goods, 'delivering on April 17th, complete 8th May,' bound the seller to begin delivering on April 17th, all the judges agreed that if it did, and the seller made no delivery on that day, the buyer might rescind the contract.
was given that rice shipped in February would be the spring crop, and quite as good as rice shipped in March or April. Yet the house of lords held that the action could not be maintained, because the meaning of the contract, as apparent upon its face, was that all the rice must be put on board in March and April, or in one of those months. In the opinions there delivered the general principles underlying this class of cases are most clearly and satisfactorily stated. It will be sufficient to quote a few passages from two of those opinions.
lar damage resulted sulted to them from the rice not having been put on board in the months in question. My lords, I cannot think that there is any foundation whatever for that argument. If the construction of the contract be as I have said, that it bears that the rice is to be put on board in the months in question, that is part of the description of the subject-matter of what is sold. What is sold is not 300 tons of rice in gross or in general. It is 300 tons of Madras rice to be put on board at Madras during the particular months.' 'The plaintiff, who sues upon that contract, has not iaunched his case until he has shown that he has tendered that thing which has been contracted for, and if he is unable to show that, he cannot claim any damages for the non-fulfillment of the contract.' Pages 467, 468.
Lord BLACKBURN said: 'If the description of the article tendered is different in any respect, it is not the article bargained for, and the other party is not bound to take it. I think in this case what the parties bargained for was rice, shipped at Madras or the coast of Madras. Equally good rice might have been shipped a little to the north or a little to the south of the coast of Madras. I do not quite know what the boundary is, and probably equally good rice might have been shipped in February as was shipped in March, or equally good rice might have been shipped im May as was shipped in April, and I dare say equally good rice might have been put on board another ship as that which was put on board the Rajah of Cochin. But the parties have chosen, for reasons best known to themselves, to say: We bargain to take rice, shipped in this particular region, at that particular time, on board that particular ship; and before the defendants can be compelled to take anything in fulfillment of that contract it must be shown not merely that it is equally good, but that it is the same article as they have bargained for, otherwise they are not bound to take it.' 2 App. Cas. 480, 481.
shipment, from Penang to London, the name of the vessel or vessels, marks, and full particulars to be declared to the buyer in writing within 60 days from date of bill of lading,' the seller, within the 60 days, declared 25 tons by a particular vessel, of which only 20 tons were shipped in November, and five tons in December; and it was held that the buyer had the right to refuse to receive any part of the pepper. In Honck v. Muller, 7 Q. B. Div. 92, under a contract for the sale of 2,000 tons of pig-iron, to be delivered to the buyer free on board at the maker's wharf 'in November, or equally over November, December, and January next,' the buyer failed to take any iron in November, but demanded delivery of one-third in December and one-third in January; and it was held that the seller was justified in refusing to deliver, and in giving notice to the buyer that he considered the contract as canceled by the buyer's not taking any iron in November.
payment,—'payment net cash within three days after receipt of shipping documents,'—but that does not split up the contract into as many contracts as there shall be deliveries for the purpose of so many distinct quantities of iron. It is quite consistent with the natural meaning of the contract that it is to be one contract for the purchase of that quantity of iron to be delivered at those times and in that manner, and for which payment is so to be made. It is perfectly clear that no particular payment can be a condition precedent of the entire contract, because the delivery under the contract was most certainly to precede payment; and that being so, I do not see how, without express words, it can possibly be made a condition precedent to the subsequent fulfillment of the unfulfilled part of the contract by the delivery of the undelivered steel.' 9 App. Cas. 439.
Moreover, although in the court of appeal dicta were uttered tending to approve the decision in Simpson v. Crippin, and to disparage the decisions in Hoare v. Rennie and Honck v. Muller, above cited, yet in the house of lords Simpson v. Crippin was not even referred to, and Lord BLACKBURN, who had given the leading opinion in that case, as well ad Lord BRAMWELL, who had delivered the leading opinion in Honck v. Muller, distinguished Hoare v. Rennie and Honck v. Muller from the case in judgment. 9 App. Cas. 444, 446.
cases in the supreme court of Pennsylvania, cited at the bar, support no other conclusion. In Shinn v. Bodine, 60 Pa. St. 182, the point decided was that a contract for the purchase of 800 tons of coal at a certain price per ton, 'coal to be delivered on board vessels as sent for during the months of August and September,' was an entire contract, under which nothing was payable until delivery of the whole, and therefore the seller had no right to rescind the contract upon a refusal to pay for one cargo before that time. In Morgan v. McKee, 77 Pa. St. 228, and in Scott v. Kittanning Coal Co., 89 Pa. St. 231, the buyer's right to rescind the whole contract upon the failure of the seller to deliver one installment was denied, only because that right had been waived, in the one case by unreasonable delay in asserting it, and in the other by having accepted, paid for, and used a previous installment of the goods. The decision of the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts in Winchester v. Newton, 2 Allen, 492, resembles that of the house of lords in Mersey Co. v. Naylor.
Being of opinion that the plaintiff's failure to make such shipments in February and March as the contract required prevents his maintaining this action, it is needless to dwell upon the further objection that the shipments in April did not comply with the contract, because the defendants could not be compelled to take about 1,000 tons out of the larger quantity shipped in that month, and the plaintiff, after once designating the names of vessels, as the contract bound him to do, could not substitute other vessels. See Busk v. Spence, 4 Camp. 329; Graves v. Legg, 9 Exch. 709; Reuter v. Sala, above cited.
The chief justice was not present at the argument, and took no part in the decision of this case.
1. S.C. 5 Fed. Rep. 768.

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