Schmueckle v. Waters
| Decision Date | 08 October 1890 |
| Docket Number | 14,302 |
| Citation | 25 N.E. 281,125 Ind. 265 |
| Parties | Schmueckle v. Waters et al |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
From the Allen Circuit Court.
The judgment is affirmed, with costs.
W. P Breen, for appellant.
R. C Bell and S. L. Morris, for appellees.
The appellant, Schmueckle, instituted suit to recover the amount due on a promissory note signed by the appellees, payable to the plaintiff's assignor, at a bank in this State.
It is disclosed by the evidence that the note originated in a transaction between the makers thereof and certain persons who claimed to represent an incorporated company having its principal office in the State of Ohio. The agents of the company pretended to sell the appellees ten bushels of Bohemian oats, at $ 10 a bushel, the company as a part of the same transaction executing its bond in return, in which it engaged to sell twenty bushels of oats for the makers of the note at $ 10 a bushel, less a stipulated commission, the oats to be sold at a date prior to the maturity of the note which the appellees executed, payable to Peter Certia, as their part of the transaction. The bond contained the following stipulation:
"It is agreed and understood by and between the parties named in this bond, that the transaction covered by this obligation is of a speculative character, and is not based upon the real value of the grain."
Between the parties to it such a contract, as is disclosed by the record, is plainly void as against public policy. The note and the bond were executed at the same time, as parts of one transaction, between the same parties, and related to the same subject-matter. The rule is, where two or more writings are executed at the same time and relate to the same transaction or subject-matter, they must be construed together in determining the contract between the parties. Sutton v. Beckwith, 68 Mich. 303 (13 Am St. Rep. 344, 36 N.W. 79). Taking the transaction in its full measure and scope, it was simply this: Ten bushels of oats, of the actual value of thirty or forty cents a bushel, were delivered by one party to the other, upon an agreement that the party receiving the oats should execute his note for $ 100, the party furnishing the oats agreeing in turn to sell twenty bushels of oats to be delivered by the maker of the note, at the price of $ 10 per bushel, both parties, presumably, having full knowledge of the actual value of the oats. One who voluntarily, with his eyes open, and without being overreached or defrauded, engages in a transaction such as that, simply becomes a party to a gambling contract, which the law will not enforce between the parties, or those having notice of the nature of the transaction.
There is no validity or virtue in any contract, unless the parties between whom it is made have the power to appeal to the courts of public justice for redress in case of its violation. A transaction which in its objects, operation or tendency is prejudicial to the public welfare, is against public policy, and will not be enforced between the parties to it. It is abundantly clear that the makers of the note would not have given their obligation to pay $ 100 for property worth three or four dollars, except upon the consideration that the company agreed to sell twenty bushels of oats for them at a price which made it necessary to find some other person who was either a knave or a dunce, before the maturity of their note. This was plainly, as...
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