Bates v. Diamond Crystal Salt Co.
| Decision Date | 02 May 1893 |
| Citation | 36 Neb. 900,55 N.W. 258 |
| Parties | BATES ET AL. v. DIAMOND CRYSTAL SALT CO. |
| Court | Nebraska Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Syllabus by the Court.
In a suit for violation of a contract, the courts will not, for the measure of the damages, apply a rule which would give plaintiff a greater compensation for a breach of the contract than he could receive had it been performed.
Commissioners' decision. Error to district court, Douglas county; Hopewell, Judge.
Suit by the Diamond Crystal Salt Company against Bates, Wilcox & Streeter. Judgment for plaintiff. Defendants bring error. Affirmed.Fawcett, Churchill & Sturdevant, for plaintiffs in error.
Leavitt Burnham and Kennedy & Learned, for defendant in error.
The Diamond Crystal Salt Company sued Bates, Wilcox & Streeter. The petition alleged that the salt company sold and delivered to Bates, Wilcox & Streeter, at their request, 375 cases of Diamond Crystal salt, at an agreed price of 85 cents per case, amounting to $318.75, and that the defendants were entitled to a credit of $45, commission earned by them on the sale of salt, and prayed judgment for $273.75, with 7 per cent. interest from the 30th day of August, 1887, the day of the sale and delivery of the salt. Bates, Wilcox & Streeter answered this petition, admitting the purchase and price of the salt, but alleged that the sale of the salt sued for was made by one Canan, the agent of the salt company, who, as an inducement for the defendants to purchase said salt, then and there gave them, Bates, Wilcox & Streeter, the exclusive agency for the sale of the plaintiff's salt in the state of Iowa, and in all the states and territories in the United States west of the Missouri river, and then and there agreed to allow the defendants a commission of $45 per car load on all of said salt sold by them, Bates, Wilcox & Streeter, within said territory; that said agency should continue as long as the defendants, Bates, Wilcox & Streeter, faithfully represented the plaintiff, and endeavored to sell its salt. The defendants also alleged that the said Canan assured them that their commissions on the sale of salt would pay for the car load purchased long before the same would be due and payable; and that they, Bates, Wilcox & Streeter, relying upon the assurances and promises of the said agent, bought the car load of salt sued for, accepted the agency, and at once commenced a canvass for the sale of salt, and spent 23 days' time, paying their own expenses, and that they made sale of three car loads of salt,--one to Witner Bros., one to Shenkberg & Co., and one to Warfield, Howell & Co.,--and had arrangements almost completed for the sale of seven other car loads of salt; that the salt company failed and refused to fill the orders for salt sold to Shenkberg & Co. and Warfield, Howell & Co., and, without any notice to the defendants, refused longer to recognize them as agents; and that by reason of the salt company's failure to deliver the car load of salt sold by plaintiffs in error to Warfield, Howell & Co., that firm lost confidence in plaintiffs in error, and countermanded an order which they had given them for a car load of starch, on which the plaintiffs in error would have realized a profit of $60. The plaintiffs in error counterclaimed under said contract, as follows:
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
¦Commission on sale of car load of salt to Witner Bros. ¦$ 45¦
¦ ¦00 ¦
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¦Commission on sale of car load of salt to Shenkberg & Co. ¦45 ¦
¦ ¦00 ¦
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+----¦
¦Commission on sale of car load of salt to Warfield, Howell & Co. ¦45 ¦
¦ ¦00 ¦
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+----¦
¦To time and expenses in soliciting orders for salt for plaintiff for 23 ¦230 ¦
¦days, at $10 per day...To continue reading
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Roberts v. Drehmer
... ... judgment for costs cannot be reviewed ... [59 N.W. 913] ... (Bates" v. Diamond Crystal Salt Co., 36 Neb. 900, 55 ... N.W. 258.) ... \xC2" ... ...
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Roberts v. Drehmer
...presented here. No motion to retax the costs was made in the lower court; hence the judgment for costs cannot be reviewed.Bates v. Salt Co., 36 Neb. 900, 55 N. W. 258. Instruction numbered 5 of the instructions given by the court on its own motion was as follows: “But if, on the other hand,......
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