Pensacola Lumber Co. v. Sutherland-innes Co.

• Decision Date: 19 December 1905
• Citation: 39 So. 789,50 Fla. 244
• Parties: PENSACOLA LUMBER CO. v. SUTHERLAND-INNES CO.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

39 So. 789

50 Fla. 244

PENSACOLA LUMBER CO. v. SUTHERLAND-INNES CO.

Florida Supreme Court, Division A.

December 19, 1905

Error to Circuit Court, Escambia County; C. B. Parkhill, Judge.

Action by the Sutherland-Innes Company against the Pensacola Lumber Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Affirmed.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

Pleas on equitable grounds in actions at law must be purely defensive, and are never admissible when they raise issues with which the court on its common-law side is competent to deal.

To an action for breach of a lumber contract, a plea on equitable grounds to the effect that the real consideration for the contract sued on was another contract or combination entered into be the parties with three other lumber dealers, designed to control the price of lumber in that port, which other contract or combination the plaintiff had violated, and that by mistake of law the latter was not written into the contract sued on, is bad, and a demurrer thereto is properly sustained.

COUNSEL Blount & Blount, for plaintiff in error.

Avery &amp Avery, for defendant in error.

OPINION

COCKRELL J.

The Sutherland-Innes Company brought an action at law for breach of contract, which was made part of the declaration and is in the following words and figures:

'Pensacola Fla., July 1st, 1902.

'Memorandum of agreement, entered into this 1st day of July, 1902, by and between the Sutherland-Innes Co., Ltd., of Pensacola, and the Pensacola Lumber Co., of Pensacola, in which the Sutherland-Innes Co. agree to buy and receive and the Pensacola Lumber Co. agree to sell and deliver the following P. P. sawn timber, namely: 3,000 pieces, not exceeding 45 cft. average, usual good quality, at 15 cents basis, 40 cft. avg. at Ferry Pass. Delivery to be made in monthly proportions, during the months of July, August, September. Payment cash on receipt of specifications and boom receipts. Usual interest, from date of payment of specifications to be paid by Sutherland-Innes Co.'

There was verdict and judgment for the plaintiff in the sum of $700. To review that judgment the defendant prosecutes this writ, and assigns as error the sustaining of a demurrer to its amended equitable plea.

The purpose of this plea, which is quite lengthy and need not be set forth in full, was to show that the actual consideration for the contract sued on was another contract or combination entered into by these parties, together with three other lumber dealers in Pensacola, jointly, with the object in view of fixing the price of lumber at that port that might be controlled by these five dealers, and that the plaintiff had breached the latter contract. The 'equity' of the plea must be found in this paragraph:

'That the plaintiff and defendant jointly prepared the contract attached to the declaration, and that the plaintiff when it signed the said contract was ignorant of any rule of law requiring the whole of the stipulation of both parties to the written contract to be embraced in the writing, or, if it...