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106 Wis. 41

Teipel v. Meyer

Wisconsin Supreme Court

Decided February 27, 1900

Wisconsin Supreme Court · decided 1900-02-27

H. JonnsoN, Circuit Judge. The complaint alleges that the parties to this action entered into an agreement whereby “the defendant agreed thereafter to sell and deliver to the plaintiff, at the city of Milwaukee, as the plaintiff should order and request, certain brands of imported beer ” (naming them); that defendant was the sole importer; “that, by the terms of the said agreement, the said defendant promised and agreed to deliver to the plaintiff, at Milwaukee, in such…

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““The most important missing element in the contract is that the plaintiff does not promise to do anything. ITe may or may not continue to buy beer of the defendant, as he pleases. He is not bound to continue in business for a day, and is not bound by any promise to buy a single keg of beer. The contract was as clearly one-sided as it possibly could have been made. It had the effect merely to bind the plaintiff to' receive and pay for such beer as he might from time to time order from the defendant. Further than this, it had no binding force, for want of mutuality.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Pessin v. Fox Head Waukesha Corp.

Relies on Davie v. Lumberman's Mining Co. · Hoffman v. Maffioli · Bailey v. Austrian

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1900-02-27

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently June 1978

10 state decisions

5019001910192019301940195019601970decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

BaedeeN, J.

¶1The complaint' fails to state a cause of action, and the proof is not broader than its allegations. Summarized, the complaint states that defendant agreed to sell plaintiff certain brands of beer, “ so long as the said plaintiff should thereafter continue to buy the said beers from the said defendant.” It is an elementary principle in the law of contracts that, to be binding, they must be mutual. 7 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law (2d ed.), 114; Dodge v. Hopkins, 14 Wis. 630; Atlee v. Bartholomew, 69 Wis. 43; Hoffman v. Maffioli, 104 Wis. 630. There is no allegation or claim that the defendant was to furnish all the beer required by the plaintiff’s trade, or that he should do so for any specified period, or that plaintiff was to deal in defendant’s beers exclusively, or that the defendant should sell exclusively to plaintiff. The most important missing element in the contract is that the plaintiff does not promise to do anything. He may or may not continue to buy beer of the defendant, as he pleases. He is not bound to continue in business for a day, and is not bound by any promise to buy a single keg of beer. The contract was as clearly one-sided as it possibly could have been made. It had the effect merely to bind the plaintiff to receive and pay for such beer as he might from time to time order from the defendant. Further than this, it had no binding force, for want of mutuality. It comes clearly within the line of cases cited in 104 Wis. 630. As supporting the same principle, we cite the following cases: Am. C. O. Co. v. Kirk, 68 Fed. Rep. 791; Davie v. Lumberman’s M. Co. 93 Mich. 491; Bailey v. Austrian, 19 Minn. 535.

¶2By the Oov/rt.— The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed.

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