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44 N.Y. 643

Marsh v. . Rouse

New York Court of Appeals

Decided September 13, 1871

New York Court of Appeals · decided 1871-09-13

The facts of this ease, as found by the referee, are substantially as follows: On Wednesday, the 13th day of January, 1864, the plaintiffs were partners in business in the city of Syracuse, and on that day the defendants were at their store and agreed to purchase of the plaintiffs, and the plaintiffs agreed to sell them, 200 barrels of highwines at one dollar per gallon.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“of such a character as to unequivocally place the property within the power and under the exclusive^ dominion of the buyer”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Hinchman v. Lincoln

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1871-09-13

How this case has been cited

Cited by 13 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 1951

2 district · 9 state decisions

30187118801890190019101920193019401950decided

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 →

Gray, C.

¶1 The absence of a note or memorandum in writing, subscribed by the plaintiffs and defendants, of their contract' of the 13th of January, 1864, for the sale and purchase of the 200 barrels of high wines, or the acceptance and receipt of some portion of them by the defendants, or the payment by them of some portion of the purchase-money, rendered the contract void. The contract between the plaintiffs and Wood for the purchase of the 100 barrels lacked the same elements of vitality, and was, therefore, worthless when it was made; and unless the defendants’ subsequent directions to Wood to ship the 100 barrels of wines, contracted by him to the plaintiffs, to the defendants’ consignee in New York, was an acceptance and receipt by the defendants of the 100 barrels, in part performance of the oral contract of the 13th January, between the plaintiffs and defendants, for the sale and purchase of the 200 barrels of wines, the plaintiffs are remediless. The directions by the defendants to Wood to ship the 100 barrels to their consignee, did not oblige him to *647 waive his lieu upon the property for the unpaid purchase-price and ship the wines, nor does it appear that he complied with the directions to ship. On the contrary, so far as the findings of fact show, the goods remained under his control several days after the directions to ship, and, for ought that appears, until after they were sold at auction in pursuance of the plaintiffs’ notice. What would have been the effect of shipping them as directed by the defendants, is not now necessary to be considered. It is enough that there was no vesting of the possession of those wines in the defendants, “ as the absolute owners, discharged of all lien for the price ” on the part of W ood. To take the case out of the statute, the acts of the parties must have been of such a character as to unequivocally place the property within the power and under the exclusive dominion of the buyer.” (Shindler v. Houston, 1 N. Y., 261, 269, 270; Rodgers and others v. Phillips &; Oakley, 40 N. Y., 519.) Such not being the case, it is unnecessary to examine the other grounds of defence. The judgment appealed from should be affirmed.

¶2 All for affirmance.

¶3 Judgment affirmed, with costs.

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