Court Opinion

ID: 9829116
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:00:33.161643+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:57.520205
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellants present an extended motion for rehearing, agreeably couched in respectful but forceful terms, urging numerous errors in the conclusions expressed in our original opinion. In view of which we have again reviewed the record, and, while we do not know that we can add materially to what we originally announced, we will briefly notice a few of the contentions presented in the motion which are apparently particularly stressed. We think the facts deducible from the evidence, as stated in our original opinion, are substantially accurate, and that the omissions noted and which council desire added, are evidentiary in character and immaterial to the conclusions reached.
Counsel also request that we state if by our decisions we intend to depart from the holding in Baker v. Kellett-Chatham Machinery Company (Tex. Civ. App.) 84 S. W. 661, “that a traveling salesman has no ’ apparent authority to make a binding contract for his principle.” As applied to the particular facts of that case, we have no complaint to make of the announcement therein made, but we thought and yet think that the case is clearly distinguishable from the one before us. In that case, Baker & Co. instituted suit for damages to recover for the breach of an alleged contract of the Kellett-Chatham Machine Company. The court found that the contract had been executed to furnish certain irrigation machinery by one McCutcheon; that he only had authority to solicit orders for its purchase, which were to be submitted to defendants for its ratification and approval; that the price fixed by other parties in competitive bids for the same machinery was so far in excess of the price fixed by McCutcheon on the defendant’s machinery that it would ordinarily excite suspicion, either that the party, offering for sale such machinery at the low price charged by McCutcheon, was suffering from some mental aberration, or had no authority from his principle to sell at such figures, and “fixed upon the purchaser notice' that the agent had exceeded his authority”; that, immediately upon the receipt of the order, the machinery company repudiated it and received nothing thereunder, Baker & Co. not having paid anything upon the contract. The court further held that the testimony was such as to support the conclusion “that plaintiffs knew, or by the exercise of ordinary prudence could have known the limitations upon McCutcheon’s power as defendant’s agent, and that the contract they undertook to make with him exceeded his authority, and would have no binding effect upon defendant in the absence of its approval or ratification and that, by the exercise of such reasonable care as a person of ordinary prudence would use under the same circumstances, the plaintiffs would have known that approval of such contracts was required in order to consummate the sale.
The case of Short v. Metz Company, by the Court of Appeals of Kentucky, reported in 165 Ky. 319, 176 S. W. 1144, is also emphasized in the motion. In that case it appears that the Metz Company was engaged at Waltham, Mass., in the manufacturing and sale of automobiles, which were known as the Metz. Short, at the time, was the owner of a Reo five-passenger auto, and he and one Humphreys entered into a contract by virtue of which Short was to swap his Reo car to Humphreys for one of the Metz cars, Short to give Humphreys $175 as boot between the cars. We need not, we think, trace the circumstances ending in the Metz Company refusing to deliver the ear to Short, inasmuch as it was distinctly held that at the time of making this contract Humphreys was not an agent of the Metz Company Of any kind; the court stating that—
“The evidence not only fails to show that at the time of the making of the contract between Humphreys and appellant Humphreys had any authority to make a contract for ap-pellee, but conclusively shows his want of Such authority.”
It further appeared in the case that pursuant to the contract, Short paid to Hum-phreys $175, of which Humphreys sent $150 to the Metz Company upon their refusal to ship without such advance payment, and the receipt of this money was pleaded as ratification of the contract with Humphreys. But the court found that the order for the car was by Humphreys alone, that they knew nothing of Short in the transaction till long afterwards; that the shipment of the car was to Humphreys with the draft attached to the bill of lading which Humphreys failed to pay; that the sale in fact was to Hum-phreys, and they had the right to retain the amount received by -it thereon; and that the retention of the money would not amount to ratification:
We submit that those cases are not controlling here. The sale in question was made by acknowledged agents of appellant, under circumstances briefly stated in our original opinion. Upon the delivery of the machine, the purchase price was forthwith forwarded to appellant’s general agents at Dallas, Tex., and soon thereafter, according to the testimony of the dealer Knox, full explanation of the circumstances of the sale was made to the Dallas representatives. This must have been before the receipt by the company at its main office at Racine, Wis., of the order or money paid for the machine, for we find indorsed upon the order the following: “Order received at office in Racine, Nov. 29, 1919. Accepted 11-29^19,” and the evidence shows that that order was sent to the Dallas office on September 6,1919, that the tractor arrived *449for delivery September 19, about twenty days after the order had been sent in. Mr. Knox testified that he went to Dallas and made the explanations to which we have referred, just after Mr. Beavers returned, which was about October 1, 1919. So that we have a case in which the appellant company, with full knowledge that must be imputed to it of the manner and circumstances of the sale made by its agents, not only retained the fruits of the sale, but also further recognized it as operative by making no complaint and sending its mechanics and operatives from its Dallas headquarters to remedy the defects in the machinery. The evidence all seems to indicate to us that both Knox and Preston and appellant’s agents at Dallas were acting in good faith in furtherance of the interest of their principal, to the end that their manufactured articles should be introduced and sold in the market of that section.
Other features of the motion for rehearing perhaps merit notice, but the writer’s other duties seem to preclude further discussion.
The motion for rehearing is accordingly overruled.