Burns v. Baldwin-Doherty Co.

• Citation: 170 A. 511
• Parties: BURNS v. BALDWIN-DOHERTY CO.
• Decision Date: 19 January 1934
• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Maine (US)

170 A. 511

BURNS

v. BALDWIN-DOHERTY CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Jan. 19, 1934.

On Motion and Exceptions from Superior Court, Aroostook County.

Action by J. Frederic Burns against the Baldwin-Doherty Company. Verdict for defendant, and plaintiff brings exception and files a motion for new trial.

Exception and motion overruled.

Argued before PATTANGALL, C. J., and DUNN, STURGIS, BARNES, THAXTER, and HUDSON, JJ.

R. W. Shaw and A. S. Crawford, Jr., both of Houlton, for plaintiff.

T. V. Doherty, of Houlton, and Cook, Hutchinson, Pierce & Connell, of Portland, for defendant.

DUNN, Justice.

This action was for an alleged breach of warranty, as to quality, in negotiations leading to the sale of certain chemicals which, after being mixed by the vendor (now defendant), were delivered by direction of the vendee (present plaintiff) to his subvendee, to fertilize a potato crop.

In the declaration in the writ there are allegations of: (1) Express warranty; (2) purchase in reliance thereon; (3) material defects; (4) liability. An additional averment is that, on the subpurchaser suing his vendor (this plaintiff), claiming the fertilizer was not as represented on resale, the original vendor, though it came in by request to defend such suit, subsequently withdrew, and left the defendant therein to make, without assistance, a defense that proved unavailing. There is assertion that, as between plaintiff and defendant, the matter is res judicata. Issue was joined. The sufficiency of the form of pleading the estoppel is conceded. The jury verdict was for the defendant. Plaintiff perfected exceptions to the exclusion of evidence, and filed a motion for a new trial. The motion raises the question whether the verdict of the jury is clearly wrong—i. e., if the verdict is manifestly against the weight of the evidence.

The origin of the litigation was in Houlton, that town being the domicile of both plaintiff and defendant, and also of one Joseph T. Michaud, who, as plaintiff, prevailed in the action in which this plaintiff was the unsuccessful litigant.

On a day near the last of May, 1930, plaintiff agreed with Mr. Michaud to supply commercial fertilizer for his farm, payment therefor to be in potatoes, at digging time. On buying the fertilizer, or the active chemical constituents thereof, from the defendant, the plaintiff directed that delivery be made to Mr. Michaud, which was done.

Mr. Michaud's crop failed. He sued his vendor, on the theory that inferior fertilizer was the efficient cause for the loss of, or damage to, the crop which it was maintained would have resulted, had the fertilizer been, in regard to quality and fitness, as was represented on selling it to him. Philbrick v. Kendall, 111 Me. 198, 88 A. 540. At the trial, Mr. Michaud had a verdict of $2,120.32, on which judgment was entered; damages and taxable costs together amounted to $2,200. The judgment was fully satisfied.

When, in the instant action, counsel for plaintiff had read aloud, in the presence and hearing of the jury, the declaration in the writ, and finished opening the ease, he offered in evidence an exemplification of the record in Michaud v. Burns, which, objection being interposed, was excluded. The exception makes the point that this was prejudicial error.

It is a principle of the common law that, when a fact is once finally adjudicated, without fraud or collusion, by a tribunal of competent jurisdiction, the judgment binds the parties and their privies. Lander v. Arno, 65 Me. 26; Van Buren Light & Power Co. v. Inhabitants of Van Buren, 118 Me. 458, 109 A. 3; Old Dominion Copper Min., etc., Co. v. Bigelow, 203 Mass. 159, 214, 89 N. E. 193, 40 L. R. A. (N. S.) 314.

Parties, in the larger legal sense, are all persons having a right to control the proceedings, to make defense, to adduce and cross-examine witnesses, and to appeal from the decision, if any appeal lies. Greenleaf, Evid. § 523, 535; Duchess of Kingston's Case, 3 Smith's Lead. Cas. 1998 (9th Am. Ed.); Litchfield v. Goodnow, 123 U. S. 549, 8 S. Ct 210, 31 L. Ed. 199. The same thing may also be said of those who assume to have the right to do these things. Winchester v. HeiskelL, 119 U. S. 450, 7 S. Ct. 281, 30 L. Ed. 462.

Privity is a "mutual or successive relationship to the same rights of property." Bouv. Law Diet; Greenleaf, Evid. § 189.

Prima facie defendant was not bound by the judgment recovered against Mr. Burns. There must have been some showing of defendant's indemnifying connection with the earlier controversy before the judgment could be admissible in evidence. Davis v. Smith, 79 Me. 351, 10 A. 55. The exception is without merit, for two reasons. The first is that the matter did not appear upon the record, so that it might be determined by the court, and there was then no evidence upon which, with the rational inferences susceptible of being drawn therefrom, estoppel by judgment could have been found. Lander v. Arno, supra. Secondly, the very copy of the record which had been excluded was later admitted into the evidence. Thomson v. Sebasticook & Moosehead R. R. Co., 81 Me. 40, 16 A. 332. Cf. Williams v. Williams, 109 Me. 537, 85 A. 43; O'Donnell v. Portland R. R. Co., 106 Me. 201, 76 A. 408.

The initial contract of sale—that by defendant to plaintiff—was an oral one. On conflicting evidence, the existence of a warranty of the quality of that which was sold was for the jury. The jury, as has already been pointed out, found for the defendant.

It may suffice here to say the jury might validly find, as respects the sale, either of the ingredients of the artificially prepared fertilizer, or the commercial mixture itself: (a) That there was no warranty of quality; that is, that defendant delivered with respect to quality, precisely what, previously to the...