Telex Corp. v. Hamilton
| Decision Date | 14 March 1978 |
| Docket Number | No. 50303,50303 |
| Citation | 576 P.2d 767,1978 OK 32 |
| Parties | The TELEX CORPORATION, a Delaware Corporation, and Telex Computer Products, Inc., an Oklahoma Corporation, Appellants, v. R. F. HAMILTON, III, Trustee for S. M. Schack d/b/a Jack Q. Green, Appellee. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Appeal from the District Court of Tulsa County; Ronald N. Ricketts, Judge.
In action for enforcement of an agreement for the furnishing of information, the Trial Court found that the agreement was enforceable and entered judgment against the Appellants. Appellants appeal. AFFIRMED.
Serge Novovich, Tulsa, for appellants.
Sneed, Lang, Trotter, Adams, Hamilton & Downie by R. Hayden Downie, Brian S. Gaskill, Tulsa, for appellee.
R. F. Hamilton III, Trustee for S. M. Schack, d/b/a Jack Q. Green, Appellee, brought this action against Telex Computer Products, Inc., and The Telex Corporation, Appellants, for enforcement of an agreement providing for the supplying of information identifying a certain lost or misplaced, and for that reason uncollectible, account receivable owed to Appellants. The Trial Court entered judgment for Appellee under the terms of the agreement.
Appellants appeal, asserting that neither Appellee nor the real party in interest, S. M. Schack, has a legal capacity to sue and that the Trial Court erred in failing to hold that the agreement was void or voidable or otherwise against public policy and unenforceable.
The pertinent facts are that Schack learned that a company, Arcata Real Estate Data, Inc. (Arcata), owed another company a substantial amount of money for computer services, but that the unidentified company had not billed Arcata for those services. Schack then set out to discover the name of that creditor company. Through conversation or telephone calls with employees of Arcata, he was able to discover that Appellants had supplied various computer machinery to Arcata. He then assumed that the "mystery creditor" was Appellants and called Appellants, identified himself by the fictitious name "Jack Q. Green", and commenced negotiations to work out an agreement whereby he would furnish Appellants with the name of their "lost debtor" for a percentage of the amount so recovered. When Appellants expressed interest in such an agreement, Schack went to Tulsa and entered into an agreement with Appellee for Appellee to represent him in the negotiations with Appellants.
The herein questioned agreement resulted from those negotiations. The agreement provided that Appellants would pay Appellee 25% Of any amount so collected up to a maximum of $25,000. It is admitted that, as a result of the information furnished by virtue of this agreement, Appellants were able to collect a "lost" account in the amount of $95,414.84 from Arcata.
Appellants refused to honor said agreement on the grounds that it was contrary to public policy, so Appellee filed the action with which we are here concerned. The Trial Judge found for the Appellee and rendered judgment against Appellants for $23,853.56, but denied Appellee's request for attorney fees.
Appellants' major contention is that the information furnished them by Schack was information which Schack had misappropriated from the true owner thereof, Arcata. Arcata had no proprietary interest in that information, and that allegation is without merit. Appellants apparently want to condemn Schack for obtaining the name of a company which owed Appellants money and which hid that fact from Appellants. On the contrary, by the exercise of ingenuity and enterprise, Schack made it possible for Appellants to collect a "lost account" from Arcata that they could not have found or collected otherwise. How the officers of Arcata felt...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Harvell v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.
...the federal court sits.]. 22. Bohannan v. Allstate Ins. Co., 1991 OK 64, ¶ 30, 820 P.2d 787; Telex Corp. v. Hamilton, 1978 OK 32, ¶ 8, 576 P.2d 767; Paclawski v. Bristol Laboratories, Inc., 1967 OK 21, ¶ 5, 425 P.2d 452; Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co. of Hartford, Conn. v. Gentry, 1942 OK 366, ¶ 32,......
-
SFF-Tir, LLC v. Stephenson
...that place is "contrary to the law or public policy of the state where enforcement of the contract is attempted")(citing Telex Corp. v. Hamilton, 576 P.2d 767 (1978)76 and Clark v. First. Nat. Bank, 59 Okla. 2, 157 P. 96 (1916) ).Oklahoma law on what state's law Oklahoma requires federal co......
-
SFF-Tir, LLC v. Stephenson
...law principles. See Tucker v. Cochran Firm-Criminal Def. Birmingham L.L.C., 2014 OK 112, ¶ 37, 341 P.3d 673, 688 ; Telex Corp. v. Hamilton, 1978 OK 32, 576 P.2d 767, 769 (" ‘[T]he usual and most important function of courts of justice is [ ] to maintain and enforce contracts, ... unless it ......
-
Sabine Corp. v. ONG Western, Inc.
...Southwestern Railway Co. v. Boight Voight, 176 U.S. 498, 505, 20 S.Ct. 385, 387, 44 L.Ed. 560, 565 (1900), quoted in Telex Corp. v. Hamilton, 576 P.2d 767, 769 (Okla.1978). The power of courts to nullify contracts as in contravention of public policy is a very delicate power, to be exercise......