Dothan Grocery Co. v. Pilcher

• Decision Date: 17 May 1917
• Docket Number: 4 Div. 711
• Citation: 75 So. 899,200 Ala. 151
• Parties: DOTHAN GROCERY CO. v. PILCHER et al.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

75 So. 899

200 Ala. 151

DOTHAN GROCERY CO. v. PILCHER et al.

4 Div. 711

Supreme Court of Alabama

May 17, 1917

Rehearing Denied June 21, 1917

Appeal from Circuit Court, Houston County; H.A. Pearce, Judge.

Action by the Dothan Grocery Company against Louie Pilcher and others. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff appeals. Transferred from Court of Appeals under Acts 1911, p. 450, § 6. Affirmed.

Farmer & Farmer, of Dothan, for appellant.

Hill &amp Thigpen, of Dothan, for appellees.

SAYRE J.

Appellant plaintiff in the court below, complains that appellees were allowed the benefit of a set-off which had no support in the evidence. The issue was whether one McKinney had authority to buy a carload of cotton seed from appellees for the account of appellant; appellees insisting that he had such authority appellant insisting that he had not. McKinney was a traveling salesman for appellant, and his ordinary business and authority was to sell groceries and collect the price of the same in money or checks. Whatever authority he had in the matter of buying cotton seed for appellant he got from Jackson, appellant's president and general manager. Both Jackson and McKinney testified at the trial that the latter had no authority to buy cotton seed for appellant, and the latter, with whom alone appellees claimed to have made the contract, testified that he had never bought, nor agreed to buy, any seed from appellees for appellant. However, these two witnesses agreed, in effect, that Jackson had instructed McKinney to look out for any cotton seed that might be had at a bargain in his territory, and to report the same to Jackson, who would then consider and determine whether to buy, and McKinney agreed that he had talked with appellees about the purchase of cotton seed, but denied that he had either proposed or accepted any contract for the purchase of appellees' cotton seed. One of the appellees, on the other hand, testified that, in a conversation between himself and Jackson, in which, after the transaction in dispute, he had urged appellees' claim on account of the seed Jackson had not denied that McKinney had appellant's authority to purchase seed for it, but had denied that he had authority to purchase at the price at which appellees claimed to have sold the seed. And then appellees offered in evidence a letter written to them by McKinney pending and concerning the dispute about appellees' claim, and there...