Case Name: Dairymen's League Co-operative Association, Inc., Appellant, v. Merle Holmes et al., Respondents, Impleaded with Another
Court: New York Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1924-09-30
Citations: 239 N.Y. 503
Docket Number: 
Parties: Dairymen’s League Co-operative Association, Inc., Appellant, v. Merle Holmes et al., Respondents, Impleaded with Another.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Reports
Volume: 239
Pages: 503–504

Head Matter:
Dairymen’s League Co-operative Association, Inc., Appellant, v. Merle Holmes et al., Respondents, Impleaded with Another.
Contract — action for breach — when terms so incomplete and indefinite as to invalidate contract.
Dairymen’s League Co-op. Assn. v. Holmes, 207 App. Div. 429, affirmed.
(Argued June 4, 1924;
decided September 30, 1924.)
Appeal from a judgment entered February 1, 1924, upon an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme' Court in the fourth judicial department, reversing a judgment in favor of plaintiff, entered upon a verdict, and directing judgment in favor of defendants. The. action was to recover for the breach of an alleged contract whereby defendants, respondents, agreed to deliver all milk produced by them during the term of the contract to plaintiff for sale as their agent. The answer of the defendants, respondents, denied that they had ever executed the contract and that there had been any violation thereof and alleged affirmatively that the plaintiff had failed to comply with all the provisions of the contract; that the liquidated damage clause was void; that defendants were not members of the plaintiff association and that it had made deductions from their milk checks which were ultra vires and illegal among which were deductions for purchase of plants outside of the State of New York; that the delivery of milk under the contract was made through duress; and that the contract was without consideration. The defendants also set up a counterclaim for the difference between what the plain tiff received for milk delivered by defendants during the period from May 1, 1921, and April 1, 1922, and the amount paid defendants and also a second counterclaim for the amount of milk delivered during fourteen days of the month of April, 1922.
Seward A. Miller, P. C. J. De Angelis and Bradley Fuller for appellant.
W. R. Pratt and Frederic C. Barns for respondents.

Opinion:
Judgment affirmed, with costs. Held, that the contract in respect of loans which the plaintiff may enforce from the defendants is so incomplete and indefinite in its application to non-members as to invalidate the contract-
Concur: Hiscock, Ch. J., Cardozo, Pound, McLaughlin, Crane, Andrews and Lehman, JJ.