Court Opinion

ID: 9529419
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:50:39.42148+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:46.340511
License: Public Domain

Opinion on Rehearing August 1,1967. JUSTICE ABRAHAMSON delivered the opinion on rehearing. Having reconsidered the briefs and having studied the petition for rehearing and the pertinent authorities, we have decided to depart from our opinion. The second letter, upon reflection, added a condition of termination which was not present in the first letter. The added contingency was that the agreement of the parties as represented by both letters “would be automatically cancelled” if shipments to plaintiff’s customers did not total $25,000 in any year. Unless both parties agreed, neither could terminate, absent cause, unless the contingency were met.  While both letters provided for termination by mutual consent, the contract would have been for an indefinite duration and thus terminable at will absent the condition added in the second letter. However, the additional provision did amount to the setting of a condition, upon the happening of which, the contract would have been terminated. The contract was not ambiguous in its expression of duration and, therefore, not subject to construction. No sufficient cause was proved for termination, nor was there an agreement to terminate. In legal effect, the contract specified a definite duration which prevented the defendant from terminating at will. Liberty Industrial Sales, Inc. v. Marshall Steel Co., 272 F2d 605 (CA 7th, 1959); Stein v. Isse Koch & Co., Chicago, Inc., 350 Ill App 171, 112 NE2d 491. On rehearing, the judgment for the plaintiff in the sum of $5,087.92 is affirmed and the cause is remanded to the trial court for further proceedings in keeping with the views herein expressed. On rehearing: affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded. MORAN and SEIDENFELD, JJ., concur.