Slater v. Savannah Sugar Ref. Corp.
Citation | 110 S.E. 759,28 Ga.App. 280 |
Decision Date | 04 March 1922 |
Docket Number | (No. 12558.) |
Parties | SLATER . v. SAVANNAH SUGAR REFINING CORPORATION. |
Court | United States Court of Appeals (Georgia) |
(Syllabus by the Court.)
Where parties have attempted to execute a contract in writing, all the provisions of the instrument will, so far as permissible and consistent with their meaning when reasonably interpreted, be given a construction that will uphold the instrument as a valid contract, rather than a construction which will render the instrument invalid.
Where an instrument in writing, purporting to be a bilateral contract, contains mutual promises, which without more, and when taken independently of certain subsidiary provisions in the instrument, would render the instrument valid as a contract, such subsidiary provisions will not, unless their terms imperatively demand it, be given a construction that will nullify and completely destroy the entire obligations of either party under the instrument, and thus render the instrument lacking in mutuality and void.
(Additional Syllabus by Editorial Staff.)
Error from Superior Court, Chatham County; P. W. Meldrim, Judge.
Action by the Savannah Sugar Refining Corporation against J. C. Slater. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Affirmed.
Travis & Travis, of Savannah, for plaintiff in error.
Hitch, Denmark & Lovett, of Savannah, for defendant in error.
STEPHENS, J. [1, 2] The Savannah Sugar Refining Corporation brought suit against J. C. Slater to recover damages of the defendant for an alleged violation by him of the following alleged contract:
The defendant demurred to the plaintiffs' petition, one of the grounds of demurrer being that the alleged contract sued upon was "unilateral" (using that, word in the sense in which it is used by the legal profession in Georgia, to mean that the alleged contract lacked mutuality), and that for this reason no contract between the parties was created. The trial judge overruled the demurrer, and the defendant excepts.
The defendant contends that the alleged contract was void for lack of mutuality, in that the plaintiff, the Savannah Sugar Refining Corporation, was not bound to per; form. The instrument sued on is an attempted agreement between two parties who will be designated herein as the seller and the purchaser. It stipulates that "100 barrels standard fine granulated sugar" are "sold" by the seller to the purchaser, and that "this contract is accepted" by both parties. Such an acceptance by the...
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