141 Wis. 110 | Wis. | 1909
There is sufficient evidence to support the finding of the trial court that the business carried on at Lake Geneva by the defendant Harold J. Douglass was his own, and that his codefendants were not interested therein.
The trial court further found that the members of the firm of Douglass & Dunn did not breach their contract by engaging in business at Williams Bay and Zenda, as these places were not in the “vicinity” of Lake Geneva within the meaning of the term as used in the contract.- The word “vicinity” does not express any definite idea of distance. Used in some connections it may mean a very trilling space; used in others it may mean thousands of miles. In re Hancock St. Extension, 18 Pa. St. 26; State v. Meek, 26 Wash. 405, 67 Pac. 76; Schmidt v. Kansas City D. Co. 90 Mo. 284, 1 S. W. 865, 2 S. W. 417; Langley v. Barnstead, 63 N. H. 246.
The parties to the contract no doiibt intended that the firm
The contract being ambiguous in failing to prescribe a definite distance from Lake Geneva within which the firm of Douglass & Dunn should not engage in business, the construction placed thereon by the parties themselves becomes important.
Practical- construction placed by the parties in interest upon doubtful or ambiguous terms in a contract will exercise a great and sometimes a controlling influence in determining the construction to be placed thereon by the courts. Janesville Cotton Mills v. Ford, 82 Wis. 416, 430, 52 N. W. 764; Walsh v. Myers, 92 Wis. 397, 401, 66 N. W. 250; Murray Hill L. Co. v. Milwaukee L., H. & T. Co. 110 Wis. 555, 566, 86 N. W. 199; Jones v. Thomas, 120 Wis. 274, 280, 97 N. W. 950; Excelsior W. Co. v. Messinger, 116 Wis. 549, 554, 93 N. W. 459.
The firm of Douglass & Dunn placed a practical construction upon the contract by engaging in business at Williams Ray within a couple of months after their contract with plaintiffs was consummated, and at Zenda a short time thereafter. It advertised its business in the Lake Geneva papers-. Presumably the plaintiffs knew that the firm was selling flour and feed at the places named. If they did not, their business could not have been very seriously affected. Some eleven months after the business- at Williams Bay was started, plaint iffs evidently supposed that the firm of Douglass & Dunn was
It is by no means dear that the evidence of the witness Dunn was competent as to the definition of the word “vicinity,” as used in the contract, given to the parties by the attorney who drafted such contract, and before it was signed. While evidence of surrounding circumstances and facts- that
By the Courts — Judgment .affirmed., ’