Court Opinion

ID: 9653101
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:38:48.883815+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:56.108889
License: Public Domain

WILSON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I regret I am not able to concur in the opinion. The record before this court presents issues which have troubled courts and have been the subject of much refining by the text writers.
The evidence on which the referee made his findings and from which he drew his conclusions was not before the District Court, and, perforce, is not before this court. While the order could have been accepted as an entirety, since the order was for 160,009 copies at a fixed price, or as a severable order composed of distinct units, since the copy, art work, and, editorials of each issue had to be approved by the appellant before it went to press, and the price for each issue was also definitely fixed, it was not formally accepted by the appellee as an entire contract by any written or oral communication.
Its acceptance, it is true, either as to the first monthly issue or in its entirety, could have been found from what was said and done at the conferences preliminary to the printing of the first issue and delivery of the first unit; but whether there was a meeting of the minds of the parties in the conferences held before the first publication to treat the contract as an entirety, was a question of fact for the referee. Cecile Costumes, Inc., v. Michel et al. (Sup.) 190 N. Y. S. 509, 511. The referee found that there was no evidence before him to indicate that the bankrupt had any intent of treating the order as an entire contract, and the only definite intention shown on bis part was that of accepting the first issue.
It is not a fair inference from the referee’s certificate that the conferences held indicated that the creditor accepted the order as an entire contract. Instead, the referee by his conclusion must have found to the contrary, since he allowed the appellee’s claim only to the extent of $940. There is nothing in his certificate to indicate that the conferences had anything to do with any publication except the first, and by the express terms of the order, the art work, editorials, and copy of each issue must receive the approval of the appellant before it went to press.
I do not think section 45 of the Restatement of the Law of Contract determines the issue here. It is, of course, true that an aeceptanee of a unilateral offer can be shown by the acts of the parties; but where the unilateral offer is divisible and the acceptance of the offer as an entirety is not otherwise shown, a supplying by the offeree and an acceptance of one unit by the offeror may be an acceptance only on the unit supplied. White v. Allen Kingston Motor Car Co., 69 Misc. 627, 126 N. Y. S. 150; Murrell v. Graziade (Sup.) 130 N. Y. S. 140; Hampton Cotton Mills v. Hershf eld, 121 Misc. 518, 201 N. Y. S. 556.
The first two cases on which the District Court relied in reversing the findings and conclusion of the referee, which are also cited as supporting the opinion, were cases where the order, though susceptible of division, being made up of monthly insertions of advertising matter, was held to be for an entire period for a definite sum and the publication of one .insertion was held to he an acceptance of the entire order and created an irrevocable contract. In the case of Butchers’ Advocate C‘o. v. Berkof et al., 94 Misc. 299, 158 N. Y. S. 160, 161, however, also cited in the memorandum of the District Court and in the opinion, as sustaining the views there expressed, it was held that as there was no acceptance of the entire order by the creditor, and as the offer was to pay so much per insertion, the order *462could be canceled at any time. The same principle was laid down in White v. Allen Kingston Motor Car Co., supra-; Murrell v. Graziade, supra; Hampton Cotton Mills v. Hershfeld, supra.
The requirement in this ease that each issue must receive the approval of the appellant as to copy, editorials, and art work, may have rendered the promise of the appellant a conditional one as to each issue, and a condition precedent to any obligation to accept each issue on his part, and goes far to establish his claim that the conferences related only to the first issue, as the referee found.
Without the evidence on which the referee made his findings, it does not appear that his conclusions were drawn solely from admitted facts. In such cases his findings should stand, unless it appears they were clearly wrong. Free et al. v. Shapiro (C. C. A.) 5 F.(2d) 578, 579; In re Barnet Mfg. Co. (D. C.) 11 F. (2d) 873.