Court Opinion

ID: 9616221
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:44:26.099875+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:56.196356
License: Public Domain

Townsend, J.,
dissenting. The evidence is undisputed that W. D. Perry, agent of Farmers’ Livestock Auction Co. Inc. had formerly engaged in the business of selling livestock on his own behalf; that he sold to this defendant under much the same circumstances as he made the sales to the defendant now under consideration; that in this manner the defendant became indebted to W. D. Perry in the sum of $15,000 or $20,000, which sum was paid up prior to any of the transactions here under consideration; that on March 27, 1950, six days after the sale of March 21, the defendant paid by check in the sum of $4,122.90, which check was subsequently paid by the defendant’s bank, for livestock which W. D. Perry, as agent of the Farmers’ Livestock Auction Co. Inc. had sold to the defendant on March 7 and 14, fourteen and seven days respectively before the transaction involved in the first indictment, and for which payment was not made until thirteen or twenty days after the livestock was delivered to the defendant; that on March 21, 1950, at a time when the defendant was already indebted to the auction company in the sum of $4122.90, the sale involved in the first indictment in which the defendant incurred an additional indebtedness of $2976.61 was consummated, making a total indebtedness on this date of $7099.51; that the payment of March 27 reduced this indebtedness to $2976.61, but on March 28, the day following this pay*155ment, the sale involved in the second indictment was consummated, thus increasing the indebtedness to $8434.64; that this indebtedness remained due and unpaid until April 4, the date of the fourth transaction, which forms the basis of the third indictment, on which date the. indebtedness was increased to $12,259.31; that on the dates of the consummation of each of the sales forming bases for the indictments under consideration invoices were furnished the defendant on the premises and at the times of the sales, and that there is no evidence of an express agreement between the parties that the sales were to be cash transactions. It follows, therefore, that in order to determine whether these sales were cash sales or credit sales the course of conduct of the parties resulting in the transactions here involved must be looked to in order to determine whether or not there was an implied agreement that the sales were to be cash sales, or whether such conduct implies sales for credit rather than cash.
A cash sale as contemplated under the provisions of Code § 5-9914, under which the indictments were drawn) is defined in Cornell v. State, 64 Ga. App. 202 (1) in which Gardner, J., dissented, and based on Skinner v. Hillis, 25 Ga. App. 711, as follows: “ ‘[it] includes all sales where it is expressly understood that the payment of actual money shall not be delayed for any longer period of time than is necessary, in the ordinary and usual course of business.’ ” And in Hill v. Butler, Stevens & Co., 8 Ga. App. 669, 672, it is held as follows: “It has several times been held that although time is required in order to procure the actual money in which the payment is to be made, the transaction would still be construed to be a cash sale, or a sale for cash, if this was the understanding of the parties; and on the other hand, if there was no understanding on the part of the parties as to the terms of the sale, the transaction has been held to be on credit, though only a brief time was to elapse between delivery and payment.”
Since the rule laid down in the Cornell case is less favorable to the defendant than that in the Hill case, it will be treated here as the prevailing rule of law in this State with reference to the proper construction of Code § 5-9914, supra. So viewed, the evidence demands a finding that in the ordinary and usual course of business the livestock was invoiced on the premises at the time *156of the consummation of the sale and before the removal of the property from the premises by the purchaser and thereupon immediately paid for by check by the purchaser. The evidence here also demands a finding that as to a few of the big purchasers, including the defendant, credit was extended, they being permitted to take the livestock together with the invoice therefor back to their places of business and within the next few days mail a check in payment thereof. Assuming that it was “expressly understood that the payment of actual money shall not be delayed for a longer period of time than is necessary in the ordinary and usual course of business”, here there is nothing in the ordinary and usual course of business which would require waiting until a time subsequent to the delivery of the livestock to make payment by check, since here the purchaser was given an invoice before he left the premises with the livestock. There was nothing to keep him from writing a check before he left with the property, whereas in the Cornell case the purchaser was not informed and was not to be informed of the amount for which the check was to be written until the invoice could be prepared on the following day. To say that it was more convenient for the purchaser to wait until he took the livestock back to his place of business and thereafter within the next few days make remittance by check is another way of saying that he was credited for such period of time. When parties to a contract reach an understanding by the terms of which the transaction is to be consummated in a particular way and it is so handled and so consummated, then those facts determine whether it was a cash or a credit transaction. Parties cannot engage in credit transactions and change their nature merely by declaring that those transactions which obviously involve credit were not so considered by one of the parties thereto, and so sustain an unwarranted conclusion. To so pervert the meaning of the statute after credit has in fact been extended is to make it a vehicle of imprisonment for debt, which is expressly prohibited by our Constitution. Code § 5-9914 occupies a very important place in the economy of the farmers of this agricultural State. It prevents purchasers at cash sales from escaping with the property after giving bad checks or from slipping away with the property without making any gesture toward payment. *157Planters and commission merchants by the exercise of reasonable diligence can employ this statute to protect themselves against purchasers seeking to cheat and defraud them. However, this statute was never intended to be used as a means of violating a sacred provision of the Bill of Rights of our Constitution, because however noble be the purport and intent of the Code section and however important it may be to planters and comission merchants of this State and to facilitating business transactions, it can never rise to equal importance with the provisions of the Bill of Rights of our Constitution, which is important not only to those in any specific occupation but to all people generally as a safeguard of our common liberties. The Bill of Rights has already too often been hurdled by judicial construction in this State in order to achieve what immediately appears to be a just or expedient result. The writer will go on further in this direction than he is already required to go by binding judicial precedent.
I am authorized to say that Felton, J., joins me in this dissent.