Wilson v. Hentges
| Decision Date | 26 November 1879 |
| Citation | 3 N.W. 338,26 Minn. 288 |
| Parties | Joseph H. Wilson and others v. N. Hentges and another |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Appeal by plaintiffs from an order of the district court for Houston county, Page, J., presiding, denying their motion for a new trial, after a trial before Brill, J., (acting for the judge of the 10th district,) and a jury.
Order reversed, and new trial ordered.
Smalley & O'Brien, for appellants.
Harries & Lomen, for respondents.
Action on two promissory notes, executed by defendants to the "Cedar Falls Scale Company," or order, and endorsed, after maturity, to plaintiffs.
It appeared from the evidence that the payee in the note granted to Hentges the exclusive right to sell, in Vernon county Wisconsin, for three years, a patented article called "Budge & Russell's Patent Sack-holder Weighing Scale;" and, also, that Budge & Russell, who appear to have constituted the scale company, held a contract in writing with Essler, Norris & Doolittle, of St. Peter Minnesota, by which the latter firm agreed to manufacture the scales at a fixed price, and deliver them to Budge & Russell or the holder of the contract, or their order, and that Budge & Russell endorsed on this contract: and delivered it, so endorsed, to Hentges. The grant of the right to sell the scales, and the endorsement and delivery of this contract, formed the consideration for the notes.
The defences alleged to the notes were that the payee made certain false and fraudulent representations in respect to the value and usefulness of the invention, and also represented and guaranteed that Essler, Norris & Doolittle would furnish the articles on Hentges's demand, according to the terms of said written contract, and that those persons would not, when he called on them so to do, furnish him any of the articles. There was no evidence whatever of such representations or guaranty. It was proved that Essler, Norris & Doolittle failed to furnish any of the articles, although Hentges called upon them to do so; but neither the payee in the notes nor Budge & Russell had made themselves responsible to Hentges for anything that firm might or might not do. The mere assignment to him of those persons' contract to furnish the articles -- and its endorsement and delivery appear to have been intended as an assignment -- did not make the assignors liable for any default on the part of Essler, Norris & Doolittle. Hentges's remedy was against that firm.
The further defence was that the scales described were neither a new nor valuable invention, and they were practically useless for the purposes for which they were intended, and did not weigh correctly, and so the grant of the right to sell them did not constitute a valuable consideration for the notes. There was no evidence that the invention was not a new one. The only evidence as to its being useless was given by Hentges himself. After testifying that he procured three of the scales from one Post, he was asked to "describe the character of those scales; whether you could weigh anything...
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