67 So. 895 | La. | 1915
On August 17, 1911, the plaintiff company, a business concern of Houston, Tex., but also doing business in Shreveport, La., through an agent named Walker Ellis, sold, at Shreveport, through this agent, to the Wylie Drilling Company, a business concern in Shreveport, two car loads of piping, to be delivered at Oil City.' It consigned the two car loads, over the defendant’s road, to itself at Oil City. The agent of the Wylie Drilling Company at Oil City, on receiving advice from his principal of the shipment having been made, applied to the defendant railroad company for delivery of the consignment, although not having the bill of lading. Delivery was refused him, in the absence of the bill of lading. He then communicated by phone with Mr. Walker Ellis, the agent of plaintiff, and, he says, was authorized by Ellis to obtain delivéry of the goods, and was
Plaintiff now sues the defendant railroad company on the bill of lading. We think the trial court properly rejected the demand.
‘We therefore advise and recommend that your company immediately take proceedings in the courts of Texas against the Irish Oil Company for the amount of said indebtedness, and we guarantee on behalf of the Kansas City Southern Railway Company to see that the costs and attorney’s fees of such proceeding are paid by said railway company.”
This suit, thus recommended, was brought, and resulted unsuccessfully; and plaintiff has included in the instant suit a demand for these costs.
Defendant, as reason for resisting the demand, says that this suggestion and recommendation that a suit be brought was a mere offer on its part to pay the costs of such a suit, and that no notification of the acceptance of this offer was ever given; that the first it knew of the acceptance was when, after the termination of the suit, it was called upon by plaintiff to pay these costs; that it then withdrew the offer, on the ground that, if it had known of said suit having been brought, it could have furnished plaintiff with information which would have enabled plaintiff to succeed in it. - ,
The above transcribed letter was not a mere offer to enter into an agreement but, was a positive and unqualified authorization to plaintiff to bring the suit in question im
Judgment affirmed.