Hartlove v. William Fait Co.

Roberts, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This case was tried in the Court below before the Judge-at-Large, sitting in the Superior Court of Baltimore City, without the intervention of a jury. The verdict and judgment being against the appellant, he has accordingly appealed. The facts are, briefly, as follows: the respective parties to this cause are both dealers in the canning and sale of tomatoes.

The appellant authorized James Kean, a member of the firm of James Kean & Co., brokers in canned goods, to sell for him two thousand cases of standard three-pound tomatoes, and on the 25th of March, 1897, he did, through the instrumentality of said agent, sell said tomatoes to the appellee, at fifty-five cents per dozen or $1.10 per case, “ net cash in ten days,” September delivery, of the pack of 1897, with an allowance for labels of about one dollar per thousand in plain cases, and to be delivered at the appellee’s wharf in the month of September, 1897. On this state of facts it is contended, on the part of the appellant, that there is no evidence in the record legally sufficient to establish the contract sued on, which is admitted by the appellant to be the only question before the Court upon this appeal; and is substantially the language of the ²⁵⁶ appellant’s third prayer, which was rejected by the Court below. The evidence in the record shows plainly the acceptance of the bought note, and the only objection made to it by the appellant were his strictures upon the terms of payment made to Mr. Kean, his broker. There never was, until after the bringing of this suit, the slightest attempt by the appellant to repudiate the contract, either with the said broker for the appellee, or directly with the appellee itself.

The price of canned tomatoes advanced rapidly in the early fall of 1897. On the 3rd of September, 1897; the appellee wrote the appellant asking him to hasten the delivery of the tomatoes sold by Kean & Co. The appellant made no reply to this communication. Andón October 18th, 1897, the appellee again wrote him that he had failed to fulfill his contract as stipulated, and that suit would be brought against him if he did not deliver the goods as agreed upon by him. He then called on the appellee and informed its president that he could not deliver the goods because his factory had burned down and the farmers had failed to meet their contracts with him, and that it would be useless to sue him, and no judgment could be made out of him.

Kean, his broker, testified to several conversations with the appellant in which he made substantially the same statements as he had made to the appellee company. This action was then brought below, and for the first time the appellant set up the defence that he -had neyer authorized the sale of the goods, and had never ratified Kean’s action in making such sale; but the proof fails to sustain this contention. It is admitted on behalf of the respective parties to this appeal that the only question here to be considered and determined is, whether there is any evidence in the record legally sufficient to show “that the appellant ever ratified the written contract and agreed to deliver the goods therein mentioned to the appellee, net cash in ten days.” It is in point of fact the sole question in the case. No exception as to the admissibility of the proof