Patco Products v. Wilson
| Decision Date | 20 November 1950 |
| Docket Number | No. A--27,A--27 |
| Citation | 76 A.2d 677,5 N.J. 543 |
| Parties | PATCO PRODUCTS, Inc. v. WILSON et al. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
Felix Rospond, Newark, argued the cause for the individual appellants (Rospond & Rospond, Newark attorneys).
John F. Lynch, Jr., Jersey City, argued the cause for appellant William S. Stuhr, receiver in bankruptcy of Multi-Products Tool Co. (Edward J. O'Mara, Jersey City, attorney).
George R. Sommer, Newark, argued the cause for respondent.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The individual defendants, as a partnership doing business under the name of Multi-Products Tool Co., engaged in the transactions hereinafter mentioned. They later formed the corporation Multi-Products Tool Company, which is now in process of reorganization, appearing in this litigation by William S. Stuhr as trustee under Chapter X of the Federal Bankruptcy Act, 11 U.S.C.A. § 501 et seq. The corporation took over the assets and liabilities of the partnership and is without interests essentially different from those of the other defendants and appellants.
The case turns partly upon whether, factually, there was one or were two contracts between plaintiff and defendants. Plaintiff was the owner of a patented design for a heater plug and contracted with Kahn & Kooba Mfg. Co. to sell and deliver to that company one million sets of the assembly constituting the plug. In order to fulfill that contract plaintiff, in March, 1946, entered into a contract with the defendants whereby the latter were bound to manufacture the essential mold with appurtenances and also, from that mold, the one million plugs for Kahn & Kooba Mfg. Co. Defendants made the mold but otherwise breached the contract, professing inability to comply therewith, and plaintiff was thereupon released by Kahn & Kooba Mfg. Co. from all obligations to the latter company. Later, in November, 1946, the defendants informed plaintiff they were then able and willing to make and deliver the plugs and suggested that plaintiff secure a new purchaser, whereupon plaintiff effected a contract for the sale of one million plugs with Westchester Brickote Products Co., Inc. Defendants, knowing that plaintiff had bound itself to deliver to that purchaser one million plugs on a 'hurry' order undertook to make the goods and gave assurance that the job would 'be running in a day or two'. Again the defendants made a deliberate breach, and did so on notice that plaintiff would thereby incur a loss of $32,000 in profits. There were the additional circumstances that defendants refused plaintiff's demand to surrender the mold, which was essential to the manufacture of the product, and that defendants surreptitiously sold a large number of plugs, made from plaintiff's mold, to plaintiff's former customer, Kahn & Kooba Mfg. Co.
Plaintiff brought this suit to restrain defendants from the manufacture and delivery of the plugs to other than plaintiff, to compel the delivery of the mold with all the manufactured plugs, to make an accounting and to compensate plaintiff for losses sustained by it.
The matter came on for trial in the Superior Court, Chancery Division, Essex County, where judgment was awarded plaintiff in the sum of $40,000, to wit, loss on the Kahn & Kooba contract, $14,250, loss on the Westchester Brickote Products Co., Inc. contract, $32,000, total $46,250; less adjustments with respect to the molds, $6,250; net total to plaintiff $40,000 and possession of the molds. Appeal was taken by defendants to the Appellate Division and was certified to us on our own motion.
We have studied the allegations of the complaint and of the answers, the provisions of the pretrial order, the proofs and the comments made by counsel concurrently with the introduction of the proofs and the arguments made on paper and orally before us and have come to the...
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Zeliff v. Sabatino
...applied where justice requires. The appropriate general rule as to damages in New Jersey was expressed in Patco Products, Inc., v. Wilson, 5 N.J. 543, 547, 76 A.2d 677, 679 (1950), as 'such as may reasonably be supposed to be in the contemplation of the parties at the time they made the con......
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Casler v. Weber
...129 (E. & A.1935); Marcus & Co., Inc. v. K.L.G. Baking Co., Inc., 122 N.J.L. 202, 3 A.2d 627 (E. & A.1938); Patco Products, Inc. v. Wilson, 5 N.J. 543, 76 A.2d 677 (1950). While it is true that the plaintiff was his only witness as to the Quantum of lost profits and produced no records or b......
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Locks v. Wade
...a contract are such as may reasonably be within the contemplation of the parties at the time of the contract, Patco Products, Inc. v. Wilson, 5 N.J. 543, 547, 76 A.2d 677 (1950); and with that in view, we should not in the present case deny lessor the benefit of his bargain. Contrast Zeliff......