Aland v. Cluett, Peabody & Co.

Citations

• 259 Pa. 364
• 103 A. 60
• 1918 Pa. LEXIS 418

Syllabus

<p>Contracts — Bailment — Written contraéis — Purchase-price — Agreement as to purchase-price — Insufficiency—Plaintiff’s statement — Quantum meruit.</p> <p>A manufacturer of shirts sent a circular to various persons, engaged in the business of trimming windows, offering prizes for designs, and requesting photographs thereof. The owner of certain designs mailed photographs of them to plaintiff, with a formula for making the substance out of which the designs were to be constructed and a notice on the backs of the photographs that the designs were valuable, and that the photographs were to be returned. On the back of one of the photographs was an endorsement that the value of the original design was $2,000, and on the other photograph that it was worth $3,000, and that the formula was worth $5,000. The owner of the photographs wrote plaintiff that if the conditions on the backs of the photographs were acceptable they could use them in their exhibits, otherwise they should return them. The manufacturer replied merely stating that the photographs and letter had been received. The photographs were used in the exhibition, were not returned to the owner and were subsequently lost. In an action on an expressj contract to recover the amount endorsed on the reverse side of the photographs as their value and that of the formula, there was no evidence that defendant’s áttention was ever drawn to the endorsement or that he ever agreed to pay the amounts therein stipulated. Held, (1) the warning contained in plaintiff’s letter to defendant was sufficient to indicate that the photographs and formula were valuable and merely bailed to defendant, and defendants are liable for their reasonable worth, if properly declared for, (2) the writing on the back of the photographs and the acceptance and use thereof did not constitute a contract to pay the amount expressed in such writing, and (3) a compulsory nonsuit was properly entered.</p>