Court Opinion

ID: 7814779
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-07 17:31:51.970932+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:30:34.366961
License: Public Domain

Paul Ward, Associate Justice, dissenting. My reasons for disagreeing with the majority opinion are set out below. 1. The undisputed facts are: That Morrison shipped to Bland lumber valued at $2191.96. That Bland accepted and used the lumber; That Morrison has received not one cent for his lumber; That Bland had previously paid Whitlow $2000.00 for some lumber; That Whitlow was not the agent of Morrison, and; That Bland did not deal with Whitlow as an agent of any one. 2. The inevitable result is that Bland or Morrison must lose $2191.96, or some portion thereof. 3. It is a well established principle of law and equity that when one of two innocent parties must suffer because of a mistake, the one more responsible for the mistake, or the one who had the better opportunity to prevent the mistake must be the loser. In my opinion the undisputed testimony in this case shows that Bland was the one who had the opportunity to prevent the miscarriage of justice, as shown by the following: (a) When the first load of lumber was shipped to Bland on July 8, the tally sheet which went along with the lumber had nothing on it to show that the lumber was coming from Whitlow, but it did have on it the name of Morrison; (b) When the first load of lumber was received by Bland and part of it was not according to specifications, he was told to and he did talk with Morrison about tbe lumber, and Morrison assured him-jhat the defects would be supplied; (c) On July 13 Bland received an invoice from Morrison (not Whitlow) stating that he (Bland) was entitled to a 2 per cent discount when he paid for the lumber, and the invoice also directed Bland to pay the money to the Merchants and Planters Bank in Camden. Bland must have known that these directions were incompatible with the fact that he had already paid for the lumber; (d) A few days later Bland received the second load of lumber from the Sparkman Lumber Company with a tally sheet showing that the lumber had been sold to Morrison (not Whitlow). In my judgment any one of the above enumerated incidents was sufficient and certainly all of them were more than sufficient, to have called to Bland’s attention that something was wrong, and placed upon him the burden and obligation of making inquiry. This he did not do. The above is most significant in view of the fact that there is no contention that Morrison did anything to mislead Bland. The record discloses no fact or incident which was calculated to arouse suspicion that Bland had already paid Whitlow for the lumber. Under the above stated factual situation, the decisions of this court make it clear that this case should be reversed and that Morrison should have judgment for his lumber. In the case of Kellogg-Fontaine Lumber Co., Inc. v. Cronic, 219 Ark. 170, 240 S. W. 2d 872, the question presented was whether a notation on a check was sufficient to put the payee on notice of certain existing facts, and this court approved this statement: “ ‘This court is committed to the doctrine that notice of facts which would put a man of ordinary intelligence on inquiry is equivalent to knowledge of all of the facts that a reasonably diligent inquiry would disclose.’ ” It was also there said that the same principle of law had been announced many times by this court. In the ease of Trinity Royalty, Inc. v. Riggins, 199 Ark. 939, 136 S. W. 2d 473, the question was whether appellant, in buying an undivided interest in oil, gas and other minerals, did so without notice that appellee had previously purchased the same interest. In dealing with this question the court made the same statement as quoted above. When Morrison notified Bland that he was to pay for the lumber by sending his check to the Merchants and Planters Bank at Camden, Bland of course knew at the time that he had already paid Whitlow for the lumber. Certainly this was sufficient to put Bland on notice that something was wrong. If Bland, at that time, had merely told Morrison that he had already paid for the lumber in advance (to Whitlow) Morrison would have had an opportunity to protect himself and he certainly would not have shipped Bland the second load of lumber knowing that he would not receive any money therefor.