267 F. 35 | 8th Cir. | 1920
Lead Opinion
(after stating the facts as above). The relief sought by the Hutchinson Company in this case is an injunction against the violation of any of the'terms of the contract'of June 9, 1906, and of any of the terms of any contract resulting from the supplemental contract of January 2, 1912.
The contract of 1906, if it was not violative of the anti-trust laws of Kansas (Keene Syndicate v. Wichita Gas, Electric Light & Power Co., 69 Kan. 284, 76 Pac. 834, 67 L. R. A. 61, 105 Am. St. Rep. 164, 2 Ann. Cas. 949; Landon v. Public Utilities Commission of Kansas [D. C.] 245 Fed. 954, 955), was' a valid and enforceable agreement. But, if
The answer to this question must be found in the true meaning of the terms of the new agreement. Counsel for'the Hutchinson Company in their reply brief write that the law is correctly stated in Cold Blast Transp. Co. v. Kansas City Bolt & Nut Co., 114 Fed. 77, 81, 52 C. C. A. 25, 29, in these words:
“An accepted offer to furnish or deliver, such articles of personal property as shall be needed, required, or consumed by the established business of the acceptor during a limited time is binding, and may be enforced, because it contains the implied agreement of the acceptor to purchase all the articles that shall be required in conducting his business during this time from the party who makes the offer. * * * But an accepted offer to sell or deliver articles at specified prices during a limited time in such amounts or quantities as the acceptor may want or desire in his business, or without any statement of the amount or quantity, is without consideration and void, because the acceptor is not bound to want, desire, or take any of the articles mentioned.”
And counsel add:
“If plaintiff’s construction is proper, .the first sentence of the foregoing quotation applies; if defendant’s construction is correct, then the second sentence is in point.”
They insist that the new agreement brings this case under the first sentence of the quotation. They rely upon these terms of the contract
“natural gas in a volume sufficient to maintain a pressure not to exceed four to eight ounces to the square inch on the low-pressure lines of the said system in the said city, and at all times fully meet the demand for all purposes of domestic consumption as provided for in this contract.”
The third paragraph provides that the Wichita Company shall not be liable for any loss or damage to the Hutchinson Company from any shortage or interruption in the supply of gas—
“arising from any cause whatever; but the gas company agrees to use diligence in furnishing an adequate supply of merchantable gas for all the domestic consumers the party of the second part may secure within the corporate limits of the said city of Hutchinson.”
The fourth paragraph contains the grant to' the Hutchinson Company of the exclusive agency to distribute, sell, and deliver the Wichita Company natural gas in Hutchinson, and the covenant of the latter not to distribute or sell to other agents any gas for domestic purposes therein. In the fifth paragraph the Hutchinson Company agrees that it—
“will actually begin to receive the said gas from the said gas company and distribute and sell the same through his said system to domestic consumers thereof within the said city on or before December 31, 1906.”
Paragraph 11 contains a covenant of the Hutchinson Company that it will not, “during the term of this agency, handle, distribute, market, or sell the natural gas of any” party other than the Wichita Company, in the city of Hutchinson. The supplemental contract contains five sentences of recitals whicji precede the terms of the agreement. One of them is that by the fourth paragraph of the contract of 1906 the Wichita Company granted the exclusive agency to the Hutchinson Company to distribute and sell its natural gas in Hutchinson, and another is that in the eleventh paragraph the Hutchinson Company covenanted not to sell in the city of Hutchinson the natural gas of any one but the Wichita Company. TJie supplemental contract of 1912 provided: (1) That the exclusive agency of the Hutchinson Company should cease on January 2, 1912, and the Wichita Company might thereafter appoint other agents to distribute and sell its gas in Hutchinson; (2) that the covenant of the Hutchinson Company not to sell, market, or distribute the natural gas of anybody except the Wichita Company in Hutchinson should cease on January 2, 1912, and thereafter it might handle, market, distribute, and sell the natural gas of others therein; and (3) that nothing in the supplemental agreement “is intended or shall be construed to change, alter, or modify any or other of the terms of the said contract” of June 19, 1906.
Again, the old contract contained the provision that the Hutchinson Company would begin December 31, 1906, and continue as long as the gas field and supply line of the Wichita Company was capable of supplying the gas, not exceeding 20 years, to receive the gas of the Wichita Company, and to sell and distribute it to domestic consumers in Hutchinson. But the supplemental agreement provides that after January 2, 1912, it may handle, distribute, market, and sell to the inhabitants of Hutchinson the natural gas of any person, party, or corporation other than the Wichita Company. It may therefore, under the present contract, sell and deliver to its consumers, the inhabitants of Hutchinson, the natural gas of others than the Wichita Company to an amount sufficient to supply a part or all of the demand of its established business 'in that city. The quantity it may take of the Wichita Company is conditioned by the wish or will of the Hutchinson’Company, is neither certain nor ascertainable, and it is not bound by the new agreement to take any. To be more specific, in paragraph 3 of the old contract, now a part of the new agreement, the Wichita Company agrees to use diligence “in furnishing an adequate supply of merchantable gas for all the domestic consumers the party of the second part may secure within the corporate limits of the city of Hutchinson,” while by the second paragraph of the supplemental agreement the parties expressly contract that the Hutchinson Company may, after January 2, 1912, “handle, distribute, market, and sell” to its consumers, or any others in Hutchinson, the natural gas of others than the Wichita Company. It may therefore, by the express terms of the new agreement, lawfully take any or all the gas for its consumers from other than the Wichita
With enviable ability, industry, and patience counsel have sought out and cited many cases which they deem exceptions to the general rules (1) that a suit for an injunction against the breach of a contract should be determined by the same rules that cover a suit for the specific performance thereof, and (2) that a court of equity will not ordinarily decree specific performance of an agreement for one against whom it cannot efficiently enforce such performance, and have argued that this. case should be ruled by the opinions in these exceptional cases. They have cited, and the court has read and considered, the. opinions in Guffey v. Smith, 237 U. S. 101, 35 Sup. Ct. 526, 59 L. Ed. 856; Singer Sewing Machine Co. v. Union Button-hole & Embroidery Co., 22 Fed. Cas. 220, No. 12,904; Joy v. St. Louis, 138 U. S. 1, 11 Sup. Ct. 243, 34 L. Ed. 843; Texas Co. v. Central Fuel Oil Co., 194 Fed. 1, 5, 22, 24 114 C. C. A. 21, 25, 42, 44; Franklin Telegraph Co. v. Harrison, 145 U. S. 459, 12 Sup. Ct. 900, 36 L. Ed. 776; People’s Natural Gas Co. v. American Natural Gas Co., 233 Pa. 569, 82 Atl. 935, 938, 939; Columbus Ry. Co. v. Columbus, 249 U. S. 399, 408, 39 Sup. Ct. 349, 63 L. Ed. 669, 6 A. L. R. 1648; Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Union
Counsel cite cases in which suits for specific performance brought by holders of options to discontinue their performance at will, which inhered in the agreements or were expressly granted to them thereby when the contracts were made, were sustained by the court; hut in those cases neither the continuance - of performance by the optionees for a fixed term nor their covenant to so continue was any part of the consideration of the agreements by the defendants to continue performance, - while in the case at bar it is plain that the supposed covenants of the respective parties to continue performance constituted the real considerations each for the other of the new contract, and a decree for the performance by one of the parties while performance by the other cannot be enforced by the court, would work inequity, instead of equity.
And the conclusion is that this suit should be determined in accordance with the general rules set forth in the opening of this opinion, that the new agreement is, and has been ever since it was made on January 2, 1912, unenforceable and void for lack of mutuality as to the furnishing and delivery of any gas which the Wichita Company declines to -deliver or the Huchinson Company to receive, that a court of equity ever since that date has been and is without jurisdiction or power to compel the Hutchinson Company to receive from tire Wichita Company any natural gas or to pay for any natural gas which it does not wish to receive, and that therefore a court of equity ought not to enforce specific performance of this agreement against the Wichita Company. The conclusion of the court below that there was no.equity in the bill and its dismissal thereof was just and equitable.
“supply and deliver through its said pipe line, and through its said reducing and regulating station, natural-gas in a volume sufficient to maintain a pressure not to exceed four to eight ounces to the square inch on the low-pressure lines of the said system in the said city, and at all times fully meet the demand for all purposes of domestic consumption as provided for in this contract. However, as the production of gas from wells and the conveying of it over long distances is subject to accidents, interruptions, and failures, the gas company does not by this contract undertake to furnish an uninterrupted supply of gas for the period named herein, but only to furnish such a supply for such a period of time as the wells and pipe line of the gas company are capable of supplying.
“It is expressly understood and agreed, however, that the gas company shall not be liable for any loss, damage, or injury to-the party of the second part resulting directly or indirectly from any shortage or interruption in the supply of gas arising from any cause whatever; but the gas company agrees to use diligence in furnishing an adequate supply of merchantable gas for all the domestic consumers the party of the second part may secure within the corporate limits of the said city of Hutchinson as the said limits now exist or may hereafter bé established by law.”
That the contract “substantially provided that the supply of gas to be furnished by the pipe line company should come from a certain gas belt then situated in the state of Kansas,” that “for some time thereafter the gas supply did come from said wells.” that “this local field constituted a limitation of the pipe line as to furnishing a supply of gas,” that “since these years the gas belt alluded to in the contract has been exhausted,” and that “the contract is void and unenforceable on account of the exhaustion of the supply involved therein.”
The complainant has pleaded this contract and this notice — has attached them to its complaint and made them a part thereof. It has alleged in that complaint:
“That by the terms of said contract the defendant agreed to furnish only such a. supply for such a period of time as the wells and pipe line of the defendant were capable of supplying, but the defendant agreed to nse diligence in furnishing an adequate supply of merchantable gas for all domestic consumers the said .1. O. Davidson might secure within the corporate limits of said city of Hutchinson as the said limits existed or might thereafter be established by law.”
It alleged:
“That on account of the provisions of said contracts the defendant is obligated to use due diligence in supplying natural gas to the said city [of Hutchinson] and its inhabitants at not exceeding the rates fixed by said franchise. That the defendant now has available and is supplying said city and its inhabitants with an adequate quantity of natural gas.”
The quotations which have been made embrace all the provisions in the contract pertinent to the extent of the Wichita Company’s obligation to procure and supply natural gas to the Hutchinson Company. A careful consideration of the circumstances surrounding and the situation of the parties when the contract of 1906 was made, the known uncertainty of the amount of gas in the Kansas field, of the usual exhaustion of such fields in a few months or years, of the possible length of the term of the contract, of the purpose of the parties in making the agreement, of the express terms of that contract which have been quoted, of the context in which they stand in the agreement and of the entire body of the contract, have thoroughly satisfied that the intention of the parties in, making the agreement and the true meaning and effect of it was and is that the Wichita Company agreed that as long as, not exceeding 20 years from December 31, 1906, the wells and the Kansas field in the Kansas belt described in the contract should be capable of furnishing a supply of natural gas sufficient to meet the demand for domestic consumption in the city of Hutchinson, it would furnish that supply and use diligence in furnishing from those wells and that field an adequate supply of merchantable gas for all the domestic consumers of Davidson and his successors in interest in the city of Hutchinson, but that it should not be liable for any loss or injury to them or either of them “resulting directly or indirectly from any shortage or interruption in the supply of gas from any cause whatever.”
The contract of the Wichita Company then was that it would furnish the gas as long as the Kansas field and wells and the pipe line were capable of supplying it. By the terms of this agreement their capability to furnish this supply was a condition precedent to the existence of the Wichita Company's obligation to furnish gas at every moment after the original contract was made. If at any time that capability existed at that time the obligation existed. If at any time the capability did not exist at that time the obligation did not exist. The complainant appealed to the court of equity below to compel the Wichita Company to perform that obligation in October, 1919, and thenceforth until December 31, 1926; 'but it did not allege that the capability of the wells and gas field of Kansas which conditioned that obligation then was or thereafter would be in existence, and for that reason the bill stated no equity against the Wichita Company, and it was rightly dismissed.
Bet the decree below be affirmed.
Concurrence Opinion
I concur in the judgment of affirmance on the ground of want of mutuality of the contract. I dissent from the