Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

149 Mo. App. 12

Manzke v. Goldenberg

Missouri Court of Appeals

Decided May 31, 1910

Missouri Court of Appeals · decided 1910-05-31

— Hon. David H. Eby. Judge. (1) The sale of the eggs in controversy was consummated through a series of telegrams and letters. No time of delivery was mentioned. If there was no custom then the plaintiff would have to deliver the eggs within a reasonable time. Under the undisputed evidence, however there was a universal custom and usage understood by all people engaged in the commission business.

Relies on Black River Lumber Co. v. Warner · Chapman v. Kansas City, Clinton & Springfield Railway Co. · Berthold v. St. Louis Electric Construction Co.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1910-05-31

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently July 1955

1 federal appellate · 2 state decisions

1019101920193019401950decided

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 →

REYNOLDS, P. J.

¶1(after stating the facts). — Considering the evidence and the instructions given, we have concluded that the case was correctly presented to the jury. We must treat this case as it was tried in the lower court, that is to say on the theory that the waiver claimed was properly before the court. Correctly and accurately the waiver of time for the performance of the contract claimed to have been extended by reason of the letter of the 23d of March from the defendants to plaintiff should have been pleaded by way of reply. See Ehrlich v. Life Ins. Co., 103 Mo. 231, 15 S. W. 530, This last case is also authority in support of the action of the trial court in refusing the 10th instruction asked by the defendant. There was no such proof in the case of the existence of a general custom as to constitute it a fixed element of contract; no proof of a custom which was certain, settled and uniform, and that being so this particular 10th instruction was properly refused. Nor is there any pretense of evidence to bring home to plaintiff a knowledge of any custom. The other instructions were properly refused, first because each of them sounded on this matter of custom, and second, for the reasons stated *23by the court, that is, they ignored the waiver in the letter of the 23d of March. In point of fact that letter, in so many words, waived immediate delivery and really set-, tied this case against defendants, provided the shipment was made within a reasonable time. On the proposition as to the liability of the plaintiff to the defendants for' non-delivery of the three cars as originally contracted, for, and on which the counterclaim rests, we think that the law which governs and controls this is set out in Berthold v. St. Louis Electric Const. Co., 165 Mo. 280, 65 S. W. 784, where at page 304, our Supreme Court said; “If one party to a contract while engaged in executing the same is notified by the other party that he has annulled and repudiated the contract and will not longer abide by it, the first party may stop, and without tendering . . . further performance of the contract, bring his action to recover the contract price for the work performed or goods furnished, and for his damages for the difference between the contract price and what it would, have cost to perform the uncompleted part. [Black River Lumber Company v. Warner, 93 Mo. 374, 6 S. W. 210; Gabriel v. Brick Co., 57 Mo. App. 520; Chapman v. Railroad, 146 Mo. 493-4, 48 S. W. 646.]”

¶2In the case at bar plaintiff has not chosen to sue for damages alleged to have been sustained from loss of profits on all the three cars but merely for his loss on the two cars which he shipped.

¶3Our conclusion upon the whole case is that it was correctly tried and that the verdict and judgment are for the right party. The judgment of the circuit court is accordingly affirmed.

All concur.
/149/moapp/12 · .json · Public domain