Hull v. Carter

• Decision Date: 28 February 1882
• Citation: 86 N.C. 522
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: HULL, LANIER & CO. v. M. E. CARTER and others.

86 N.C. 522

HULL, LANIER & CO.

v.M. E. CARTER and others.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

February Term, 1882.

CIVIL ACTION tried at Spring Term, 1882, of BUNCOMBE Superior Court, before Gilliam, J.

W. C. Davidson, doing a mercantile business at Asheville, in the course of which he had become indebted to the plaintiffs, merchants at Baltimore, in or about the sum of $650, on April 7th, 1876, sent them by letter an order for more goods. The plaintiffs in their answer, four days afterwards, declined to fill the order, and assigned as a reason for not doing so, on the usual terms of credit, the overdue and unsettled outstanding indebtedness. So much of this letter as is material to the controversy arising upon the pleadings is in these words:

“We suggested in our last, acceptances on M. E. Carter, and we thought, should you want a bill of any extent you would certainly arrange for the balance. We are willing to sell you a small bill, say two or three hundred dollars, on our usual time. You will give us M. E. Carter's acceptance, say at 3, 4, 5 and 6 months. This will close up the old account in a manner satisfactory to us; will give you a stock and enable you to collect in your debts, and in the fall be in a good condition to make your season purchases. We regret very much to have to write you in this way, but both prudence and our judgment dictate that it is the proper course for us to pursue. We send statement of drafts, which please have accepted, and when, if you still desire, we will fill your order to the amount named.”

The four enclosed drafts, three of which are in suit, the other having been since paid, were signed by Davidson and presented to the defendant, Carter, for an accommodation acceptance, which he refused, and after being shown the plaintiff's letter still refused, unless A. T. Davidson, the father of the drawer, would unite with him in accepting the drafts. Thereupon the debtor also applied to his father exhibiting the letter to him also, and upon the faith of the assurances and promises contained therein, the drafts received the signatures of both.

These drafts covering the entire indebtedness were transmitted to the plaintiffs on April 27th, in a letter reciting the plaintiffs' offer of a limited credit--that goods were needed in the prosecution of the debtor's business to the amount of four or five hundred dollars--and renewing the order mentioned in the first application.

The plaintiff firm was dissolved on April 30th by the withdrawal of the senior partner, Hull, and the others left in charge of its effects declined to send the goods required, and after the interchange of several communications on the subject, one of the remaining members on his individual responsibility forwarded a package of sixty prints, mentioned in the order, of the value of $168, on the 11th day of May.

Davidson failed in business in August, and his stock of goods was seized by the sheriff under executions issued to him. In the summer of 1877, Davidson became an invalid and died in the ensuing fall.

It was in evidence that, since the action was brought, in a conversation between the defendant A. T. Davidson and the partner, Lanier, to an inquiry of the former why the drafts were not returned when the firm refused to furnish the goods, the said Lanier answered that, “they never yielded any advantage which they had obtained.”

It does not appear that the plaintiffs knew of the exhibition of their letter to Davidson, to the defendants, or to either; or that the acceptance by them was superinduced...