The Van Camp Packing Company v. Hartman
| Decision Date | 24 November 1890 |
| Docket Number | 14,544 |
| Citation | 25 N.E. 901,126 Ind. 177 |
| Parties | The Van Camp Packing Company v. Hartman |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
From the Marion Superior Court.
The judgment is affirmed, with costs.
J. S Duncan, C. W. Smith and J. R. Wilson, for appellant.
V Carter, for appellee.
Mitchell J. Elliott, J., did not sit in this case.
In the year 1887, the Van Camp Packing Company and William Hartman entered into a written agreement, whereby the latter undertook to cultivate, during the proper season, a certain number of acres in tomatoes, and deliver all of the product as it ripened from day to day, to the former. The company agreed to receive, unload and weigh all the tomatoes to be raised, "on usual business hours, from 6 o'clock on Monday morning till 10 o'clock on Saturday morning of each week during the season," at a stipulated price. In case Hartman made default, he agreed to pay a stipulated amount as liquidated damages, and for any default on the part of the company a like forfeiture was to follow. Hartman sued the company, alleging that it had exposed itself to the stipulated forfeiture by failing to attend at its place of business and receive, weigh and unload the tomatoes offered, according to the terms of the contract, to his damage. All other questions are expressly waived, and a reversal is asked upon the refusal of the court to give, except in a modified form, instruction No. 8, asked by the appellant.
There was evidence which tended to show that for six years prior to the making of the contract, the parties had been delivering and receiving tomatoes under a contract in substantially the same language as that sued on, in respect to the time of receiving and weighing the vegetables, and that during all previous years the company's warehouse had not been opened for receiving and weighing tomatoes until 7 o'clock in the morning, and that during the year 1887, as in all previous years, the house was opened for receiving and weighing at 7 o'clock a. m. As applicable to this state of the evidence, the appellant requested the court to instruct the jury, in substance, that if they should find from the evidence that the plaintiff had, through a series of years, been delivering tomatoes to the defendant, under contracts in the main similar to the one now in suit, and that during all those years the tomatoes had been received and weighed within the plaintiff's knowledge during certain hours, then the law would imply that by the use of the phrase "On usual business," as employed in the contract, the parties meant and intended the hours during which it had been usual thus to receive and weigh during the previous years. The court modified the instruction so that the jury were told, in effect, that the contract required the company to have its warehouse open for the reception of tomatoes at 6 o'clock in the morning, and that if it failed to do so, on any morning when the plaintiff was there ready to deliver tomatoes, thereby causing delay which resulted in loss to the latter, he was entitled to recover the damages stipulated in the contract.
It is undoubtedly true that parties who contract in respect to a particular business, are presumed to do so with reference to any uniform practice which has been so long continued as to have ripened into a usage of the business to which the contract relates; and where the contract...
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