Park Circle Motor Co. v. Willis

• Decision Date: 05 December 1952
• Docket Number: No. 8,8
• Parties: PARK CIRCLE MOTOR CO. v. WILLIS.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 104

201 Md. 104

92 A.2d 757

PARK CIRCLE MOTOR CO. v. WILLIS.

No. 8.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Dec. 5, 1952.

Reargument Denied Feb. 12, 1953.

Robert F. Skutch, Jr., and Jack H. Merriman, Baltimore (Leonard Weinberg and Weinberg & Green, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

Norman P. Ramsey, Baltimore (Harold Tschudi, Rignal W. Baldwin and Semmes, Bowen & Semmes, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Before MARKELL, C. J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, HENDERSON and HAMMOND, JJ.

DELAPLAINE, Judge.

This suit was brought in the Superior Court of Baltimore City by George C. Willis against Park Circle Motor Company for breach of warranty of title to a Cadillac sedan sold by defendant to plaintiff and subsequently found to be stolen property.

Defendant, who had purchased the automobile from a licensed used car dealer in New York City, sold it to plaintiff on July 25, 1950, for $3,195. On March 8, 1951, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and city police discovered that the car had been stolen in Elizabeth, New Jersey, from Milton Serota, and thereupon seized it for the true owner, Firemen's Fund Insurance Company, to whom Serota had assigned the title on July 18, 1950. Two days after the law enforcement officers seized the car from plaintiff, defendant tendered it back to plaintiff, as the insurance company had assigned the title to defendant. Plaintiff, however, refused to accept it and brought suit to recover $3,195, the purchase price, plus $63.90, the Maryland title tax, and $24.25, the cost of the title and the license tags, and in addition $122.64, the amount he spent for repairs to the car.

Defendant claimed the right to deduct the value of plaintiff's use of the automobile. The Court, rejecting that claim, rendered judgment in favor of plaintiff for $3,283.15, which was the price of the car plus the tax and the cost of the title and tags Defendant appealed from that judgment.

The Uniform Sales Act, adopted by the Maryland Legislature in 1910, provides that where there is a breach of warranty by the seller, the buyer may, at his election, refuse to accept the goods, if the property therein has not passed, and maintain an action against the seller for damages for the breach of warranty; or rescind the contract to sell or the sale and refuse to receive the goods; or, if the goods have already been received, return them or offer to return them to the seller and recover the price, or any part thereof, which has been paid. Laws 1910, ch. 346, Code 1951, art. 83, sec. 87(1)(c, d).

It is not clear from the declaration and the briefs in this case whether the action is for damages for breach of warranty or for recovery of the purchase price based upon a rescission. The Sales Act provides that where the goods have been delivered to the buyer, he cannot rescind the sale if he fails to return or to offer to return the goods to the seller in substantially as good condition as they were in at the time the property was transferred to the buyer. Sec. 87(3).

In 5 Williston on Contracts, Rev.Ed., sec. 1463, it is pointed out that the buyer must put the seller in statu quo, but that temporary possession of the buyer is negligible if the goods are still uninjured when tendered back. Some of the courts have gone rather far in allowing rescission without making any allowance for use. In several cases rescission of the sale of an automobile was permitted without allowance for use, although such use was rather considerable. Conner v. Borland-Grannis Co., 294 Ill. 58, 128 N.E. 317; Parkhouse v. Hodge, 221 Mich. 308, 191 N.W. 13; Brooke v. Perfection Tire Co., 110 Or. 567, 223 P. 939; Noel v. Garford Motor Truck Co., 111 Wash. 650, 191 P. 828. On the other hand, in Burnley v. Shinn, 80 Wash. 240, 141 P. 326, where an automobile, while in the possession of the buyer, had been damaged to such an extent that the parties could not be placed in statu quo, a rescission was not permitted.

The Sales Act provides that the measure of damages for breach of warranty is the loss directly and naturally resulting, in the ordinary course of events, from the breach of warranty. Sec. 87(6).

The rule laid down by the majority of decisions in the United States is that the measure of damages for breach of warranty of title to personal property is the purchase price of the property with interest. Morgan v. Hendrie Bros. & Bolthoff, 34 Colo. 25, 81 P. 700; Smith v. Williams, 117 Ga. 782, 45 S.E. 394; Knoerzer v. Meyer, 251 Ill.App. 139; Moorehead v. Davis, 92 Ind. 303; Ellis v. Gosney's Heirs, 7 J. J. Marsh., Ky., 109; Noel v. Wheatly, 30 Miss. 181; Caproon v. Mitchell, 77 Neb. 562, 110 N.W. 378; Weideman v. Estate of...