Hobbs v. Massasoit Whip Co.

• Decision Date: 01 March 1893
• Citation: 33 N.E. 495,158 Mass. 194
• Parties: HOBBS v. MASSASOIT WHIP CO.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

158 Mass. 194

33 N.E. 495

HOBBS v. MASSASOIT WHIP CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

March 1, 1893

COUNSEL

Hanly & Libby, for plaintiff.

F.L Evans, for defendant.

OPINION

HOLMES J.

This is an action for the price of eel skins sent by the plaintiff to the defendant, and kept by the defendant some months, until they were destroyed.It must be taken that the plaintiff received no notice that the defendants declined to accept the skins.The case comes before us on exceptions to an instruction to the jury that, whether there was any prior contract or not, if skins are sent to the defendant, and it sees fit, whether it has agreed to take them or not, to lie back, and to say nothing, having reason to suppose that the man who has sent them believes that it is taking them, since it says nothing about it, then, if it fails to notify, the jury would be warranted in finding for the plaintiff.

Standing alone, and unexplained, this proposition might seem to imply that one stranger may impose a duty upon another, and make him a purchaser, in spite of himself, by sending goods to him, unless he will take the trouble, and bear the expense of notifying the sender that he will not buy.The case was argued for the defendant on that interpretation.But, in view of the evidence, we do not understand that to have been the meaning of the judge, and we do not think that the jury can have understood that to have been his meaning.The plaintiff was not a stranger to the defendant, even if there was no contract between them.He had sent eel skins in the same way four or five times before, and they had been accepted and paid for.On the defendant's testimony, it was fair to assume that if it had admitted the eel skins to be over 22 inches in length, and fit for its business, as the plaintiff testified and the jury found that they were, it would have accepted them; that this was understood by the plaintiff; and, indeed, that there was a standing offer to him for such skins.

In such a condition of things, the plaintiff was warranted in sending the defendant skins conforming to the requirements, and even if the offer was not such that the contract was made as soon as skins corresponding to its terms were sent, sending them did impose on the defendant a duty to act about them; and silence on its part, coupled with a retention of the skins for an unreasonable time, might be found by the jury to warrant ...