Hogg v. J. R. Watkins Medical Co.

• Decision Date: 21 March 1921
• Docket Number: (No. 233.)
• Parties: HOGG et al. v. J. R. WATKINS MEDICAL CO.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 730

228 S.W. 730

HOGG et al. v. J. R. WATKINS MEDICAL CO.

(No. 233.)

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

March 21, 1921.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Columbia County; Chas. W. Smith, Judge.

Action by the J. R. Watkins Medical Company against N. R. Hogg and others. Judgment for plaintiff on directed verdict, and defendants appeal. Affirmed.

Henry Stevens, of Magnolia, for appellants.

McKay & Smith, of Magnolia, for appellee.

WOOD, J.

This action was instituted by the appellee against the appellants to recover the sum of $1,608.95, alleged to be the balance due on a contract entered into between the appellee and one L. L. Rowe on the 1st day of December, 1913. It is alleged that the appellants for a valuable consideration jointly and severally promised, agreed, and guaranteed to pay the above sum due by Rowe, which they have failed to do. The appellants, in separate answers, denied liability, and, among other defenses, set up that the appellee was a foreign corporation, and that the indebtedness of Rowe on which the cause of action against him and the appellants was based accrued at a time when Rowe was the agent of appellee and as such was selling the medicines, extracts, and other articles manufactured by it in the state of Arkansas without complying with Act 313 of the Acts of 1907, known as the Wingo Act. Appellants in each of their answers stated that the contract on which the suit was based was without consideration and void. The contract is set out in hæe verba in the complaint.

The parties agreed that the appellee was a corporation organized under the laws of Minnesota; that the appellee was a foreign corporation at the time the contract in suit was executed, which is the original contract of December, 1, 1913; that at that time the appellee had not complied with the laws of Arkansas with reference to foreign corporations doing business in this state.

The court instructed the jury that the written contract shows that—

There was "an absolute sale to the defendant of these medicines at a wholesale price, and he was to sell them in turn, but as to the liability of the Watkins Medical Company it was only liable to perform the part of the contract to sell the goods on time as stipulated."

The court instructed the jury to return a verdict for the plaintiff for the amount sued for. The appellants duly excepted to the ruling of the court in giving these instructions. The appellants asked the court to instruct the jury that under Act No. 313 of the Acts of 1907 they should return a verdict in favor of appellants. The court refused this prayer, to which ruling appellants duly excepted. The trial resulted in a verdict and judgment in favor of the appellees in the sum of $1,608.95, from which is this appeal.

The contract on which the cause of action in this case is predicated is quite lengthy, and for that reason we have not set it out. We have compared it with the form of contract that was...