Court Opinion

ID: 9763853
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:58:18.036281+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:50.272346
License: Public Domain

Collins, J.,
delivered the following dissenting opinion.
The primary question before this Court in this case is whether the U. S. Naval Academy Alumni Association, the appellant, is entitled to a deduction for publishing expenses under the 1940 and 1945 contracts which provided for the deduction of “the total costs and expenses of printing and publishing said issue of the Register.”
The expenses of printing and publishing, as pointed out by the appellant, are essentially different. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Vol. VII, page 1380, to print is “* * * the application to paper, vellum or any similar substance, in a press or machine of inked types, blocks or plates, bearing characters or designs.” The definition of publishing in the same volume at page 1562 is “action or business of issuing a book or books * * *.” The difference between these two terms is cited in the case of Daly v. Berry, 1920, 45 N. D. 287, 178 N. W. 104, at page 106, where it is said: “Publication and printing each have a well understood signification. Publication means to make known, a notification to the public at large, either by words, writing, or printing. Printing means the impress of letters or characters upon paper or upon other substance. The first implies the means of conveying knowledge or notice; the second implies a mechanical act. Any means, therefore, which would give notice to the public of any matter desired to be brought to their knowledge would be classed as publication.” See also Haban v. Suburban Home Mortgage Co., Ohio App., 57 N. E. 2d 97, 100, and State v. Bass, 1903, 97 Me. 484, 54 A. 1113.
*160In the case of Dashiell v. Baltimore, 45 Md. 615, under the statute the owners of property in Baltimore were assessed with a tax for street paving. The assessment was to include “the expenses of street paving.” In that case this Court held that charges for establishing the grade, for advertising and for surveying came clearly within “the expenses” provided in the statute. See also Fillmore v. Johnson, 1915, 221 Mass. 406, 109 N. E. 153, and New York Canning Crops Co-op. Ass’n v. Slocum, 1925, 126 Misc. 30, 212 N. Y. S. 534.
As to the appellee’s contention that the past construction of the contracts by both parties is binding and as no charge was made in previous years for costs and expenses of publication, these cannot now be allowed, a similar question was presented to this Court in the case of Product Sales Company v. Guaranty Company, 146 Md. 678, 127 A. 409, 410. In that case the plaintiff, a loaning company, agreed to purchase certain accounts from the defendant, Product Sales Company, for 100% of the net face value thereof, less interest, “77 percent of the net face value shall be paid in cash upon acceptance * * Also, a specified percentage on money outstanding was to be paid for the services of the loan company. This Court held that the amount of compensation was to be computed on 77% of the actual value and not on face value, although the plaintiff had offered evidence that the defendant had paid on face value and had submitted to what this Court held to be an erroneous interest exaction in settlements under previous accounting extending over a period of four years. Such erroneous statements in which the compensation had been figured had been paid by the defendant, the Product Sales Company, month after month, year after year, for four years without any protest on the part of the defendant. This Court in that case said through Judge Urner, 146 Md. at page 682, 127 A. at page 410: “It is argued that a different interpretation of the contract is required because during the course of a long series of settlements under its terms the interest and other charges deducted by *161the plaintiff were calculated upon the face value of the accounts which had been assigned. If the agreement were ambiguous as to the basis of the charges, the conduct of the parties could be considered upon the question as to its proper construction. But as there is no uncertainty in its provision as to the amounts upon which the interest and additional compensation must be computed, the submission of the defendant to erroneous exactions in the course of the previous accounting should not control our decision as to the meaning and effect of the contract in regard to the liability asserted in this action. Citizens’ Fire Insurance, Security & Land Co. v. Doll, 35 Md. 89, 6 Am. Rep. 360; Callahan v. Linthicum, 43 Md. 97, 103, 20 Am. Rep. 106; Buffalo Pressed Steel Co. v. Kirwan, 138 Md. 60, 66, 113 A. 628; 13 C. J. 548; 6 R. C. L. 854.” I do not think that because the Naval Academy Alumni Association failed to discover that the expenses of publication had not been deducted for some of the years under the 1940 and 1945 contracts in accounts prepared by the appellee, it is now barred from recovering for those expenses.
The amount sued for by the appellee was $21,000.65. At the trial appellee admitted that in calculating the net proceeds it had failed to give the appellant credit for certain items amounting to $3,189.56. The claim was thereby reduced to $17,811.09. This amount of $3,189.56 included an item of $625 for clerical help to the Association in compiling the Register for 1944 and $1,389.64 for clerical help to the Association in compiling the Register for 1943. The appellee claims that these were donations made by appellee to appellant. This is denied by appellant. A letter of June 3, 1946, from Mr. Guy Moore, appellee’s office manager, to Harry England, one of the officials of appellant’s corporation, shows that these expenses were recognized as the cost to appellant of compiling the Registers. Part of the letter follows: “Sometime back in February I talked to you on the phone and asked you to let us know the cost of compiling the 1945 Register. I have spoken to you about it a couple *162of times since then and Mit [Collins] says he has asked you for the figure at various times.” If the appellant was entitled to charge expenses for compiling the Register in 1943 and in 1945 it is clear that the Association should be entitled to charge for the clerical help in compiling the Register for the remaining years under the 1940 and 1945 contracts which would be for the years 1940, 1941, 1942, 1945 and 1946. To publish a Register as large as the one involved in this case containing twenty thousand names and addresses of course requires much clerical work and proof reading. The amount allowed by appellee having been $1,389.64 for 1943 and $625 for 1944, the average amount allowed for those two years would be $1,007.32. I am therefore of the opinion that appellant should be allowed as a counter claim at least this sum of $1,007.32 for each of the years 1940, 1941, 1942, 1945 and 1946, for which this allowance was not made, or a total of $5,039.10. This would reduce the claim of the appellant to $12,771.99. I think part of the salaries of the officers of the Association, postage, stationery and supplies, and telephone and telegraph charges should also be allowed as part of the expenses of publication, but there is not sufficient proof in this case of the amounts expended for those items. Therefore, these amounts could not be allowed at this time but I think the case should be remanded for further testimony as to these costs and also as to the costs of clerical help.