Simon, Jacobs & Co. v. Scott

Decided July 1, 1878

California Supreme Court · decided 1878-07-01

The complaint was as follows: “ [Title of Court and Cause.] “ The plaintiffs in the above entitled cause complain of the defendant, Samuel Scott, and allege and show: “ That the plaintiffs were partners doing business as merchants in Merced, Merced County, California, under the name and firm style of Simon, Jacobs & Co.; that the defendant is justly indebted to the plaintiffs in the sum of one thousand and sixty-six dollars and two cents, with legal interest thereon from the…

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““The complaint does not allege a sale and delivery of goods to defendant. Whether the defendant is liable for the goods furnished to the wife or not, it is certain that plaintiffs cannot recover against him their value, in the absence of an averment that they were sold and delivered to him. If she was authorized by reason of her relation to her husband, the nature and character of the goods, and the husband’s circumstances, to purchase them, the goods were in law sold to defendant, and the averments should have been to that effect. The averments in respect to furnishing the goods- to his wife, etc., might have been omitted as mere evidence, and not the statement of ultimate facts.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Nissen v. Bendixsen

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1878-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently September 1918

6 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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By the Court :

¶1The complaint does not allege a sale and delivery of goods to defendant.

¶2Whether defendant is liable for the goods furnished to the wife or not, it is certain that plaintiffs cannot recover against him their value, in the absence of an averment that they were sold and delivered to him. If she was authorized by reason of her relation to her husband, the nature and character of the goods, and the husband’s circumstances, to purchase them, the goods were in law sold to defendant, and the averment should have been to that effect. The averments in respect to furnishing the goods to the wife, etc., might have been omitted as mere evidence, and not the statement of ultimate facts.

¶3The demurrer should have been sustained.

¶4Judgment reversed and cause remanded, with direction to the Court below to sustain the demurrer to the complaint.