Peebles v. The Patapsco Guano Co.

• Decision Date: 30 June 1877
• Citation: 77 N.C. 233,24 Am.Rep. 447
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: ROBERT B. PEEBLES v. THE PATAPSCO GUANO COMPANY.

24 Am.Rep. 447

77 N.C. 233

ROBERT B. PEEBLES

v.THE PATAPSCO GUANO COMPANY.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

June Term, 1877.

CIVIL ACTION for Damages tried at Spring Term, 1877, of NORTHAMPTON Superior Court, before Buxton, J.

The plaintiff complained that the defendant had contracted to deliver to him at Garysburg, N. C., sixteen tons of a commercial fertilizer known as ““Patapsco Guano,” and that instead of delivering the said article, the defendant delivered a spurious article, which defendant's agent falsely and fraudulently represented to be the genuine Patapsco Guano, and by reason thereof he was damaged to the amount of $475.

Upon the question of damages, the plaintiff proved that the defendant had attached cotton belonging to plaintiff in the hands of plaintiff's commission merchant in Norfolk, Virginia, and recovered $130 (in addition to the costs of the suit) which was applied as a credit upon plaintiff's note given for the price of the guano. No personal service was made upon the plaintiff. The defendant asked the Court to charge, that the jury could not consider this $130 in estimating the damages. The Court declined the instruction and the defendant excepted.

The other damages proved by plaintiff amounted to $72. The jury found the answers to the issues submitted as follows:

1. Was the article, of which sixteen tons were sold to plaintiff in 1873, the commercial fertilizer usually known as “The Patapsco Guano,” or was it a spurious article? Ans. We agree it was a spurious article.

2. Did said article correspond in analysis with the analysis marked on the bags in which it was contained? Ans. It did not.

3. Did the defendant's agents or any of them falsely and fraudulently represent to the plaintiff that the article sold was the genuine and valuable Patapsco Guano? Ans. It was falsely represented.

4. What damage has the plaintiff sustained, if any? Ans. $202 with interest from February 4th, 1874.

Judgment for plaintiff for $202 and interest. Appeal by defendant.

Messrs. Busbee & Busbee and W. W. Peebles, for plaintiff .

Messrs. D. A. Barnes, J. B. Batchelor and Merrimon, Fuller & Ashe, for defendant .

RODMAN, J.

The plaintiff alleges that he purchased of the defendant, sixteen tons of an article well known to the trade by the name of Patapsco Guano; that the article which he received was not what was known in the trade as Patapsco Guano, but a different and worthless article; that on each bag of the article which he received there was printed what purported to be a chemical analysis of the article, purporting to give the percentage of ammonia, phosphate, &c., in the article, but that this representation was false and fraudulent, and that the article delivered did not contain the percentage represented of those valuable ingredients. He says that the identity of the article with what it was represented to be, could not be told by inspection, or otherwise than by using it on his crop, in which use it was necessarily destroyed, and he claims damages.

The defendants admit that it sold to the plaintiff sixteen tons of Patapsco Guano, and alleges that the article which it delivered was the article known in the trade by that name, and that it did contain the percentage of valuable matters stated in the labels on the bags. The jury found that the article delivered was not the genuine Patapsco Guano but a spurious article, and that it did not contain the percentage of ammonia and phosphates stated in the labels. They assessed the plaintiff's damages at $202 of which $72 was for what he called actual damages, and $130 was for that sum which the defendant had made by attachment upon certain cotton of the plaintiff, which it found in Maryland.

There was judgment accordingly and the defendant appealed.

1. The counsel for the defendant contends that this action is to recover damages for a fraud and deceit by the defendants and that such an action cannot be maintained against a corporation.

Under our present system of pleading the action may as well be considered as being for damages for a breach of warranty as for deceit. But if we take it as the latter, we think it must be considered as settled in this State, and generally in America, that an action of tort will lie against a corporation. This was held in Meares v. City of Wilmington, 9 Ire. 73, and in Lewis v. City of Raleigh, 77 N.C. 229. The cases to the same effect in other States are very numerous, and it was, at least until the decision in Western Bank of Scotland v. Addie, 1...