Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Distributing Corp. v. Cocke

• Decision Date: 18 January 1933
• Docket Number: No. 3943.,3943.
• Citation: 56 S.W.2d 489
• Parties: METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER DISTRIBUTING CORPORATION v. COCKE.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

56 S.W.2d 489

METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER DISTRIBUTING CORPORATION v. COCKE.

No. 3943.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. Amarillo.

January 18, 1933.

Appeal from District Court, Collingsworth County; A. J. Fires, Judge.

Action by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Distributing Corporation against H. F. Cocke, who brought a cross-action. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals.

Reversed and rendered.

See, also (Tex. Civ. App.) 41 S.W.(2d) 645.

E. E. Diggs, of Childress, and J. Robert Rubin, of New York City, for appellant.

R. H. Cocke and R. H. Templeton, both of Wellington, for appellee.

HALL, C. J.

The appellant corporation, engaged in distributing copyrighted photoplays and films, sued the defendant Cocke to recover $1,507.50 and interest, alleging the breach of five different contracts entered into between the parties, which provided for the exhibition by Cocke in his theater at Wellington of motion pictures and films to be furnished him by the appellant. The contracts describe the several films included in each of them respectively by production number and title and state the rental value. Appellant alleged compliance with the contracts on its part, breach by the defendant, and concluded with a prayer for damages in an amount represented by the contract prices.

Defendant answered by numerous exceptions, a general denial, and specially alleged that the contracts sued upon were null, void, and unenforceable by reason of their being in violation of the anti-trust laws of the national and state governments, in that they were made to control and were in restraint of trade and commodities and attempted to create a monopoly of the moving picture business. That the contracts were not voluntarily entered into by the defendant; that he was compelled to sign them with the terms and provisions therein printed in order to exhibit any motion picture films in his theater at Wellington, because plaintiff and other distributors refused to furnish him any films until he executed and signed said contracts with all of the unilateral, arbitrary, illegal, and unreasonable terms thereof. He denied that plaintiff was damaged in the sums or amounts alleged and that such damages, if any, were sums which plaintiff may have expended in procuring the execution of the contracts and expenses to date of the alleged breach. He further pleaded that the contracts were illegal because of the provisions for arbitration contained therein; that such provisions violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Law (15 USCA §§ 1-7, 15 note) and the state statutes against trusts (Vernon's Ann. Civ. St. art. 7426 et seq.). That the contracts were unenforceable because they provided, as is printed in red ink therein, that plaintiff had the right to adopt the provisions of a new standard exhibitors contract to be made by the Motion Pictures Producers & Distributers of America, Inc., which contract, when so promulgated, would change the terms, position, and prices contained in the contracts sued upon. That such provision is unreasonable, unjust, unilateral, and arbitrary. That plaintiff did not comply with provision D in said contracts which required it to deliver the films to the common carrier or tender any of the photoplays named in each of the said contracts, and had failed to comply with stipulation G which obligated plaintiff to give defendant, as exhibitor, four weeks' notice in writing of the date on which each photoplay would be released and made available for use.

Defendant further alleged that he sold and assigned his interest in the Rialto Theater in February, 1928, to Nelson & Simpson, who offered and agreed to exhibit in said theater the said photoplays named in the contracts, and said purchasers requested plaintiff, in writing, to furnish said photoplays, which plaintiff refused to do, in violation of the terms of said contracts.

Plaintiff filed a supplemental petition containing numerous exceptions, denied that Nelson & Simpson, the assignees of defendant, had agreed to exhibit the photoplays contracted by defendant, but on the contrary refused to accept or pay for them. That after plaintiff had filed its complaint with the Arbitration Board, defendant wrote to the secretary thereof that he had sold his business to Nelson & Simpson but they were closing the business and could not use the films.

In response to special issues the jury found, in substance, as follows: (1) The contracts sued upon were not voluntarily entered into by the defendant H. F. Cocke; (2) that the appellant, before making complaint against defendant for his failure to receive films, did not give defendant fifteen days' notice that the films or any of them were ready to be delivered to him; (3) that if the films had been tendered to Nelson & Simpson before the complaint was filed with the Arbitration Board against defendant, said films would have been accepted by Nelson & Simpson at less than the contract price; (4) that Nelson & Simpson would have paid for said films 10 per cent. less than the contract price.

Judgment was entered in accordance with the findings of the jury.

To the defendant Cocke's allegation that the contracts sued on were not voluntarily entered into by him, and that he was compelled to sign said contracts with the terms and provisions therein printed in order to produce any motion picture films for use in his theater, because plaintiff, as well as other distributors, refused to furnish any motion picture films until the defendant would execute and sign said contracts with all of the unilateral, arbitrary, illegal, and unreasonable terms thereof, the plaintiff urged an exception, which was properly sustained by the court; but we find that evidence was admitted upon such ground of cross-action, and the first issue submitted to the jury was whether the contracts were voluntarily entered into by Cocke. There was error in submitting the issue to the jury, especially after the court had sustained objections to this ground of cross-action.

An effort to recover damages against the appellant company, because it would not enter into such a contract as Cocke desired, is without merit.

As said in 2 Cooley on Torts (3d Ed.) 587: "It is a part of every man's civil rights that he be left at liberty to refuse business relations with any person whomsoever whether the refusal rests upon reason or is the result of whim, caprice, prejudice or malice." Brewster v. Miller's Sons, 101 Ky. 368, 41 S. W. 301, 38 L. R. A. 505; Master Builders' Association v. Domascio, 16 Colo. App. 25, 63 P. 782; Hundley v. Louisville, etc., R. R. Co., 105 Ky. 162, 48 S. W. 429, 63 L. R. A. 289, 88 Am. St. Rep. 298; N. Y., etc., R. R. Co. v. Schaffer, 65 Ohio St. 414, 62 N. E. 1036, 87 Am. St. Rep. 628; Heywood v. Tillson, 75 Me. 225, 46 Am. Rep. 373; McCormick v. Dalton, 53 Kan. 146, 35 P. 1113.

The appellee cites in support of his contention that the contracts were void. Paramount Famous Lasky...