Anderson v. Patten
| Citation | 137 N.W. 1050,157 Iowa 23 |
| Parties | GEORGE C. ANDERSON, Appellant, v. CHARLES A. PATTEN, Appellee |
| Decision Date | 24 October 1912 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Iowa |
Appeal from Linn District Court.--HON. MILO P. SMITH, Judge.
ACTION in replevin for the possession of a buggy. There was a judgment for defendant, from which plaintiff appeals.
Reversed.
Voris & Haas, for appellant.
F. L Anderson, for appellee.
There were horse races at Marion July 4 and 5, 1910, and plaintiff was in attendance. He shipped three buggies in the same car with his horses and placed in charge of them one Willard, who arranged for the storage of two of them in a shop and, after obtaining permission of the city authorities, exhibited the other near the park. Willard had accompanied plaintiff from Des Moines, where the latter had bought the buggies, in order to carry out a scheme entered into at the suggestion of Willard, and which is best explained by plaintiff:
The method of handling the coupons was this: There was a book of coupons with five coupons in a book, and the book sold for $ 20. A party purchasing one of the books would sell a coupon for $ 4, and the purchaser would send the coupon with $ 20 into the office, and his name was taken, and every coupon that came from his book was credited to the owner of the book, and when he had disposed of five books of coupons he had a buggy shipped to him from the factory. The coupons in all cases had to be sent in so that a record could be kept of them there.
A purchaser of coupons in this way could only get his buggy by sending his coupons in to the office and getting credit for them. The buggy of course, had to be shipped from the office. I had made arrangements with the Capital City Carriage Company to procure the buggies from them as I needed them. The three buggies were shipped to Marion, to be shown as samples of the buggies that would be received on the coupons. There were three kinds of buggies; the factory price on one was $ 60, one $ 48.75, and one $ 40. The best buggy was the sample of the buggy that would be sent out on the sale of the five coupon books. One selling four books of coupons got the second grade of buggy; and for the sale of three books the cheapest buggy was sent. If only two coupon books were sold the seller would get a set of double harness. For disposing of one book he would get a single harness. Every coupon was redeemable in merchandise.
These coupons were to be redeemed by the Uncle Sam Buggy Company, which was plaintiff. Willard was to start the sale, and as his commission was to receive $ 4 for every book sold. A couple of days after the races, Willard sold the buggy to defendant for $ 50, and the parties have not been in communication with him since. The defendant, who had first seen Willard exhibiting the buggy near the park and at the fair ground, testified that it was customary for those exhibiting at the fair ground to sell what they could after the race meeting or fair was over, and further:
Four or five days after I bought the buggy, the plaintiff, Mr. Anderson, came to my barn, and we talked the matter over. He said Willard had no right to sell it, only on a coupon order or coupon book, or something of that nature. I didn't understand the way they were selling the books. He told me he had entered into a contract with this man to sell these buggies; that he had bought the buggies himself and sent them here with Willard for him to dispose of--he claimed strictly on some sort of a coupon order is the way they were to be disposed of--and said the buggies didn't belong to Willard; that they belonged to him. He said Willard proposed the scheme to him in Des Moines. He said Willard put up collateral of some kind to make him safe in the buggy deal, and he had written east to Washington to find out about the collateral, and it was a forgery, and he showed me a letter from Washington. I can't remember the contents of the letter, only that Mr. Willard was a fraud. Anderson showed me the letter, which was directed to his father at Des Moines. Anderson told me his father was a salesman or something for the Capitol City Buggy Company, and the buggies were to go back to the factory if not sold. He said he got suspicious of these securities, and that either he or his father wrote to Washington and received the letter back that Willard was a fraud, and that if he had telegraphed to Marion immediately on receipt of the letter Willard could have been detained before he got away from here. In that conversation with the plaintiff, he told me that Willard had entered into an agreement to sell these buggies here at Marion, and was to have half the profits, and they had to account to the factory $ 60 for this buggy, and the sale price was $ 100. I told plaintiff that if Willard was in possession of these buggies as agent, and selling them, I didn't see where he could come onto me for the buggy, or any damages whatever. He said they had lost enough money on Willard already, and they couldn't afford to lose any more, and wanted to settle with me, and that rather than have any fuss they would rather lose part of it, and if I would pay part of what the buggy was worth I might keep it. I don't know who he meant by 'we.' He said, 'We have lost enough already,' when speaking to me. He said Willard had authority to sell the buggy, the way I understood it for him.
On cross-examination he testified that plaintiff
He also swore that in buying he was not aware that plaintiff was interested in the buggy, but knew he was getting it for less than factory price.
The plaintiff's version of the talk was that he explained to defendant the arrangement between himself and Willard as previously recited.
Two issues were submitted to the jury: (1) Whether Willard had actual authority to sell the buggy, and, if...
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