Shreveport Cotton Oil Co. v. Friedlander

Citations

• 112 La. 1059
• 36 So. 853
• 1904 La. LEXIS 511

Syllabus

<p>SALE BY SAMPLE — EVIDENCE—INADMISSIBILITY —REFUSAL TO ACCEPT — INSUFFICIENT PERFORMANCE.</p> <p>1. Plaintiff sues for breach of contract, growing out of defendants’ refusal to receive the by-products of its oilmill (of plaintiff;, con si suing of linters, grabbots, and flues, bought by the defendants from plaintiff in December, 1901.</p> <p>2. The plaintiff’s contention is that defendants bought according to sample, while the defendants deny that samples were mentioned in connection with the kind or quality of the products.</p> <p>3. The judge of the district court decided the contention in favor of plaintiff. On the appeal the court holds that it has found no good ground to reverse the judgment, rejecting the main demand.</p> <p>4. Without reference to samples, the plaintiff did not tender to defendants a quality equal to that sold.</p> <p>5. The mill run for the season of 1900 and 1901 was bought by defendants.</p> <p>Prior to delivery of part of the products sold, and prior to the refusal of defendants to receive those tendered because the quality was inferior, part of the output had been so disposed of by plaintiff that it could not deliver them to defendants.</p> <p>6. The contract was not indivisible. It was not a unit in the sense that plaintiff could withhold part of the output, and obtain damages from the defendants for not accepting the remainder.</p> <p>7. The broken condition of the contract on the part of plaintiff terminated the indivisibility or unity of the contract.</p> <p>8. If the rule were followed that a vendor could recover a claim in damages, although he himself had not strictly complied with his contract, it would, in some respects, put the buyer at the mercy of his vendor, which was never intended by the law. To recover damages, the vendor must begin by showing that he has complied with the terms of the contract, otherwise he cannot be heard to say that he must be reinstated in the situation in which things were at the date the contract w