68 F. 467 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern Michigan | 1895
The questions arising in this case have been argued with great learning and ability by counsel, and, although the discussion has taken a wide range, it has left for determi-na tion but two inquiries: (1) Was the contract sued upon made in this state? (2) Is the statute upon which the defense is founded a regula tion of commerce obnoxious to the constitutional grant of the power over that subject conferred upon congress?
In regard to the first of these questions, it will he noticed that the provision of the statute upon which reliance is had for the avoidance of the defendant's liability for the sum found due from him to the plaintiff limits its penalty to “contracts made in this state after the first day of January, 3894.” This contract was made, it is admitted. after that date. What was the locality of its execution? It did not become a contract until all the parties executed it. By its express provision it was not to he valid until countersigned by the agent of the plaintiff at Lansing, and approved at Akron, Ohio. This latter requisite — the approval of the plaintiff - -is the crowning act of its consummation, as expressing the agreement of the parties. It, therefore, was not made until, by plaintiff’s approval, it was perfected and adopted. Until then it was an imperfect obligation, having no force whatever. The act which gave it vitality was
2.- Upon the second question, as to the constitutionality of the state statute, there is, in my judgment, as little doubt as upon the first.' By the contract sued upon the defendant “is hereby authorized to sell Buckeye mowers, reapers, and binders, and extra parts thereof, in the following territories, viz.: Laingsburg and vicinity and Elsie and vicinity, including the townships of Washington and Elba, in Gratiot county, and Chapin in Saginaw county, and the west half of Fairfield in Shiawassee county, for and during the season of.1894” The defendant, therefore, was not a resident local agent of the plaintiff, and, although selling on commission, was really, as the contract contemplates, nothing more than an itinerant vendor in the territory specified. The fact that the company had a warehouse at Lansing, where it stored its implements, and the necessary “repairs” or parts of the machines which it manufactured and
The judgment must be entered for the plaintiff for the sum of $5,052.56, with interest at 6 per cent, from November 3, 1894.