Commonwealth v. Brandon Farms Milk Co.
| Decision Date | 13 June 1924 |
| Citation | 249 Mass. 531,144 N.E. 381 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. BRANDON FARMS MILK CO. (two cases). |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Report from Superior Court, Middlesex County; J. F. Brown, Judge.
The Brandon Farms Milk Company was convicted of detaining and using in its business milk jars of others under two complaints.On report.Verdicts of guilty set aside.A. Leonard, Asst. Dist. Atty., of Boston, for the commonwealth.
W. A. Graustein, of Cambridge, for defendant.
In June, 1920, a complaint, under R. L. c. 72, § 20, was made against the defendant, charging, in seven counts, that it did take, detain and use in its business milk jars registered under R. L. c. 72, § 19, the property of an owner specified in each count, without the consent of that owner.In March, 1921, a similar complaint under the same statute, which had then become G. L. c. 110, § 22, was made in three counts.On appeal the cases were tried together in the superior court, and the defendant was found guilty on all the counts except the fourth and the sixth of the first complaint.
Verdicts were ordered with the consent of the defendant and of the commonwealth.Thereupon the presiding judge, in accord with G. L. c. 278, § 30, reported to the court the facts necessary to present certain questions of law raised at the trial.
The facts so reported show that registered owners of milk bottles deliver milk to stores in what are called ‘store jars,’ and require the storekeepers, on delivery to them of the jars and the milk to pay, in addition to the price for the milk, the further sum of five cents for each milk jar.The milk dealers desire the return of the jars; and for each jar so returned to them they return or credit 5 cents to the storekeeper.The storekeepers are not obliged to return the jars, and some are not returned; but if any jar is not returned, the milk dealer ratains the 5 cents which were paid for it.
The storekeepers follow the method of the registered owner milk dealer.They make their customer pay 5 cents for each jar when he gets and pays for his milk, and then return the 5 conts if and when the customer returns the jars.The customer may do as he pleases about the return.
The report does not clearly state that the bottles found to have been taken, detained and used in its business by the defendant were ‘store jars,’ which had not been returned by storekeepers or their customers; but the case has been argued on the assumption that they were such jars, and no question of law would be presented by the report if the fact were otherwise.
The question to be decided is whether the delivery of ‘store jars' with the demand and receipt of the 5 cents by the registered owner in accord with the practice narrated constitutes a sale by the registered owner, and whether such action constitutes a consent by the registered owner to the use of the jars by the defendant.
If it is such a sale that the title passes to the storekeeper, and to purchasers of milk from him, then the commonwealth concedes that the registered owner thereby consents to any sale or use which the storekeeper thereafter may choose to make, even to the sale by the storekeeper to the defendant.The commonwealth contends that the transaction is not a sale which passes title to the jar.It maintains that the delivery of the 5 cents a jar by the storekeeper-although essential if he wants to get the milk-is not the payment of a price for the jar, but is either a payment of a...
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Coca Cola Bottling Co. of Northampton v. Commissioner of Revenue
...the filled, returnable containers to retailers and they in turn sell the containers to consumers. See Commonwealth v. Brandon Farms Milk Co., 249 Mass. 531, 533-534, 144 N.E. 381 (1924); G.L. c. 64H, § 1(12)(a ), and G.L. c. 64I, § 1(1). See also Hadley v. Hillcrest Dairy, Inc., 341 Mass. 6......
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State v. Reynolds Metals Co.
...222, 10 N.W.2d 835, another Michigan case. Likewise, the theory was upheld in the following cases: Commonwealth of Mass. v. Brandon Farms Milk Co., 249 Mass. 531, 144 N.E. 381, 35 A.L.R. 780; Coca Cola Bottling Plants v. Johnson, 147 Me. 327, 87 A.2d 667; Dewey Portland Cement Co. v. Crooks......
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Hadley v. Hillcrest Dairy, Inc.
...return the jug to the defendant or whether upon such return any refund was given to the customer. See Commonwealth v. Brandon Farms Milk Co., 249 Mass. 531, 144 N.E. 381, 35 A.L.R. 780. It seems likely that the transaction was either an outright sale of the milk and the jug, or a sale of th......
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Mead v. Coca Cola Bottling Co.
...of the seller from dealing with the goods as he pleased. We think that there was a sale of the bottle. Commonwealth v. Brandon Farms Milk Co., 249 Mass. 531, 144 N.E. 381, 35 A.L.R. 780. See Naumann v. Wehle Brewing Co., 127 Conn. 44, 15 A.2d 181; Cooper v. Newman, City Ct., 11 N.Y.S.2d 319......