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61 Ill. App. 340

Beardsley v. Smith

Appellate Court of Illinois

Decided December 12, 1895

Appellate Court of Illinois · decided 1895-12-12

<p>1. Profits—When Recoverable—Set-Off:—Profits which are the direct and immediate fruits of a contract entered into between the parties, are part and parcel of the contract itself and are presumed to have been taken into consideration by the parties before the contract was made, and as such, are properly the subject, of a set-off or may be recovered in a separate action.</p> <p>2. Damages—Measure of—Breach of Contract to Purchase Goods.— Where a person entered into a contract with a manufacturer to purchase a certain quantity of his goods at the lowest jobbing prices, it was held that upon the refusal of the purchaser to select and purchase the goods, the manufacturer became entitled to maintain an action for such refusal and in such action the measure of damages is the difference between the lowest jobbing prices and what it would have cost the manufacturer to make the goods.</p>

Cited by 2 later decisions — most recently January 1907

2 state decisions

Relies on Hinckley v. Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Co. · Black River Lumber Co. v. Warner · Hosmer v. Wilson

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Reversed and remanded · Decided 1895-12-12

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Mr. Justice Waterman

¶1delivebed the opinion of' the Coubt.

¶2Upon the trial the court, notwithstanding it had held good the plea of set-off, 'refused to allow the defendants the benefit of the profit, if any there was, in such contract, and the loss of such profit, if lost, on such goods. That defendants were ready, willing, able, and offered to deliver the goods, was proven. The court seemed to be of the opinion that as appellants could not tell what kind of goods appellee would have selected, therefore his contract to purchase $2,000 worth of goods was neither enforcible nor one for the breach of which damages could be recovered.

¶3What were the respective rights and obligations of the parties to this agreement ?

¶4Appellants had agreed to pay to appellee rent at the rate of $50 per month; he agreed to purchase of them at their lowest jobbing prices such goods as they manufacture, to the amount of $2,000 per annum.

¶5Being ready to manufacture and deliver goods, such as, when the contract was made, they were making, they called upon appellee to select and order; he refused to do so.

¶6Whether, under this contract, the right of selection of the kind of goods' manufactured was in appellants or appellee, we do not feel called upon to decide. It was, not because appellants refused to give to him the right of selection that appellee refused to take goods save to the value of $700.

¶7If the right to select belonged to appellee, then it was his duty within the year to make his selection.

¶8Appellee having refused to select, appellants became entitled to maintain an action for refusal to order or select. Hosmer v. Wilson, 7 Mich. 294, 303, 304; Allen v. Jarvis, 20 Conn. 38; McCombe v. N. Y. & N. E. Ry. Co., 20 N. Y. 495; Butler v. Butler, 77 N. Y. 472; Pittsburgh Ry. Co. v. Heck, 20 Ind. 303; McCormick v. Basal, 46 Iowa 235; Moody v. Brown, 34 Me. 107; Derby v. Johnson, 21 Vt. 21; Hochster v. DeLatour, 20 L. & Eq. 157.

¶9The measure of damages in such special action for refusal to select, is such amount as will fully compensate the vendor for being deprived of the benefit of his contract. Phillpot v. Evans, 5 M. & W. 475.

¶10In the case at bar the goods were contracted for at the defendant’s lowest jobbing prices; the measure of the damages is the difference between this and what it would have cost appellants to make them. Black River Lumber Co. v. Warner, 93 Mo. 374; Crescent Mfg. Co. v. Nelson Mfg. Co., 100 Mo. 325; Hinckley v. Pittsburgh Steel Co., 121 U. S. 264; Salvo v. Duncan, 49 Wis. 151; Eckenrode v. Chemical Co., 55 Md. 51; Hale et al. v. Trout et al., 35 Cal. 229.

¶11The judgment of the Superior Court is reversed and the cause remanded.

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