Howie v. Platt

• Decision Date: 23 November 1903
• Citation: 35 So. 216,83 Miss. 15
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: WILLIAM T. HOWIE ET AL. v. WALTER PLATT ET AL

35 So. 216

83 Miss. 15

WILLIAM T. HOWIE ET AL. v. WALTER PLATT ET AL

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 23, 1903

October 1903

FROM the circuit court of Scott county. HON. JOHN R. ENOCHS Judge.

Platt and another, appellants, were plaintiffs, and Howie and another, appellees, were defendants in the court below. From a judgment in plaintiffs' favor, the defendants appealed to the supreme court.

The suit was to recover on a Written contract for the sale of cologne. The defense was that the contract had been procured by fraudulent representations. The testimony for the defendants was to the effect that the salesman of plaintiffs tried to sell the goods to defendants, who refused to buy on the ground that they did not handle such goods; the salesman then went out of the store, but came back afterwards and said he had failed to place the goods in the town, and asked defendants again to take them, saying that, as an inducement to them, he would guarantee 33 1-3 per cent. profit on them for three years if the stock was kept replenished, and that he would deposit the amount of the order in any bank defendants would suggest, to make the guaranty good whereupon defendants told him that if he would put the money in the First National Bank of Meridian they would take the goods, and he agreed to make the deposit in said bank before defendants would be called on to accept the goods; the salesman then took out his written contract, which was a long one, stated that he desired to leave on the first train, only had a short time; and defendants signed the contract without reading it, supposing it contained the agreement as to the deposit, but after the salesman left they read it, and found that it did not contain the agreement to place the money in the bank, and at once countermanded the order, and refused to take the goods when they were shipped. On the trial defendants offered to prove that they had received letters from plaintiffs refusing to deposit the money in the bank that the letters had been lost or destroyed and could not be found after diligent search, and offered to prove the contents of the letters. This was objected to by plaintiffs, and the objection was sustained.

Reversed and remanded.

Green & Green, for appellants.

We recognize that parol evidence is not admissible to alter vary, or add to written contracts. But under the record here we have a failure by appellee to make sale on his first visit, then after trying the whole town he returns just before the time for the train to leave and renews his efforts, holds out new inducements, more favorable terms, and renews negotiations on the representation that the profits guaranteed would be 33 1-3 per cent. with the money deposited in a local bank, and the representations that the money was to be put in a local bank, was one of the inducements to the contract, one of its most important terms, and one on which the minds of the parties had met was that the money should be deposited in the First National Bank of Meridian, Miss. The minds of the parties had met, contract had resulted in which this deposit was one of the essential elements. The train was nearly due, the drummer was in a hurry to take it and get away, and being thus in a hurry shoved over a long contract which he assured Howie embodied the terms as agreed upon between them, and without reading the contract over, to the knowledge of appellee without having time to read it, relying upon the assurance of the agent as to its contents, and that it truly contained what the parties had agreed upon, Howie signed the order at the instance of the appellee and upon such assurances. The...