Darrow v. Harlow

Decided January 15, 1867

Wisconsin Supreme Court · decided 1867-01-15

Tbe complaint alleges that on tbe 28d of November, 1864, at Beloit, in said county, defendant agreed witb plaintiff that if tbe latter would find a purchaser for a certain farm belonging to said defendant, at a price there named, be would pay plaintiff $100; and that plaintiff found such a purchaser according to defendant’s instructions, whereby defendant became indebted, &c., and bad refused to pay. Answer, in denial.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1867-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently February 1938

8 state decisions

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.

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Downer, J.

¶1Was the motion for a nonsuit rightly overruled ? If the letter of Darrow to Harlow conveyed the idea that O’Connor would, for a part of the personal property on the farm, and the farm, give only $35 per acre, then the nonsuit ought to have been granted; for Harlow had a right to act upon the letter, and if the terms of the proposed purchase therein set out were different from what he had authorized, then he could sell to another his farm without incurring any liability to Darrow. We are of opinion that the words in the letter, “He will buy some things, and want some things put in the trade,” did, taken in connection with what in the letter precedes them, convey the idea that some property other than the farm was to be included in the sale thereof at $35 per acre; and therefore we think a nonsuit should have been granted.

¶2By the Court. — The judgment is reversed, and a venire denovo awarded.