Harris v. Williams
| Decision Date | 12 December 1949 |
| Docket Number | No. 37228,37228 |
| Parties | HARRIS et al. v. WILLIAMS et al. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Tighe & Barksdale, Jackson, for appellants.
Brunini, Brunini & Everett, Vicksburg, for appellees.
Bill was filed by Harris to recover damages for breach of oral contract covering the purchase and delivery of gravel ballast, and for discovery. Part of the demand covered charges due by the defendant for the cost of 'stripping' the surface above gravel deposits to make available such materials to both parties. The latter item is not contested.
The answer admitted an indebtedness of $6,239.21 upon these operations, but in their cross bill the defendants claimed the sum of $8,441.64 for materials delivered to complainants. The pleadings involve two suits of a similar nature which were consolidated for trial, and the debts and credits were adjusted as if it were a single cause. The chancellor found under conflicting testimony that there was no enforceable contract under which Williams was to ship at all events all materials ordered by Harris, nor was Harris obligated to order and buy all his materials from Williams. Implicit in the chancellor's decree is the finding that the agreement, although at a fixed price per ton, was only upon a day-to-day basis and at the will of Williams. Wherefore the damages for alleged breach of the oral contract were denied by the court. The decree represented the difference between the above figures, that is, the sum of $2,202.43 in favor of the defendants and cross-complainants.
The obligations imposed by the contract are legal questions, but whether there exists a certain oral agreement raises an issue of fact. We do not feel justified in overturning the finding of the chancellor, made upon sharply divergent testimony. The argument which seeks support in the circumstances of the abandonment by Harris of a substantial stock pile of materials at one site and his moving to a new site at considerable loss in order to strip the lands being mined by Williams in their common interest, together with the negotiation of a more favorable contract by Williams which would supply materials to the same job to the detriment of Harris, is persuasive. But we must assume that the chancellor took these factors into account along with the explanations tendered by the defendants.
Error is predicated upon the refusal of the trial judge to allow complainant to show that the stripping operations were...
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