48 Ind. App. 166 | Ind. Ct. App. | 1911
This was an action filed in the Superior Court of Marion County by Isaac Fosnotte, against appellant and Elmer I. French, on account, for a quantity of hay alleged to have been sold by Fosnotte to said defendants during the month of September, 1908. The complaint is as follows:
“Isaac Fosnotte complains of the Pennsylvania Elevator and Supply Company, a corporation organized and doing business under the laws of the State of Indiana, in said State, and of Elmer I. French, and says that said defendants are jointly and severally indebted to plaintiff in the sum of $150, with the interest thereon, for hay sold and delivered by plaintiff to said defendants during the month of September, 1908, a bill of pai’tieulars of which is filed herewith and made a part hereof, marked exhibit A; that said money is past due and unpaid. Wherefore,” etc.
Exhibit A shows the amount of hay delivered on each respective day, and the value thereof.
To this complaint defendants each filed an answer in general denial. The cause was tried by the court, without the intervention of a jury, and judgment was rendered against both defendants in the sum of $122.95, from which judgment the Pennsylvania Elevator and Supply Company alone appeals, and assigns as reversible errors that the complaint does not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action, and that the court erred in overruling appellant’s motion for a new trial. This motion is based on the statutory points that the decision is not sustained by sufficient evidence and is contrary to law.
These points have been fully decided by the courts adversely to appellant in the case of Curran v. Curran (1873), 40 Ind. 473, and in the later ease of Radebaugh v. Scanlan (1908), 41 Ind. App. 109. In the determination of the latter case, this court quoted with approval the following from 2 Kent’s Comm. (12th ed.) *468: “A sale is a contract for the transfer of property from one person to another, for a valuable consideration; and three things are requisite to its validity, viz., the thing sold, which is the object of the contract, the price, and the consent of the contracting parties.”
The word “sold” signifies a contract of sale of some article of value made between the parties for a valuable consideration. Prom this it follows, necessarily, that a contract of sale implies an article sold, a price paid therefor, and a mutual consent by the contracting parties.
The evidence showed the amount of hay sold and delivered, the price thereof, and that appellee had not been paid.
The conversation had with Gray, his conduct about the place of business, and his apparent management thereof, show his connection with the purchase of the hay. When these facts are considered in connection with further facts— that a sign of the size and character shown was placed over the main door of the particular place of business advertising the identical business in which his principal was engaged in the city of Indianapolis, and that he was working about the place during the entire week of the fair — we are fully authorized to draw the conclusion that appellee believed, at the time he made the sale and delivery of the hay, that he was dealing with appellant company.,
The Supreme Court of this State in determining the ease
In the case before us, all the business was transacted with French and Gray. This is by no means conclusive that the sales were made to them individually. When Gray observed the sign of his principal company over the door of his place of business, if it was not appellant’s business, that was the time for him to speak, and that was the time for him to notify appellee. And when he assisted in making the purchases from appellee, in the manner the evidence shows he did, his knowledge and his acts, under all the facts proved, became the knowledge of appellant and the acts of appellant, and it must be bound thereby.
The evidence is not in all respects satisfactory, yet it is sufficient to warrant the finding of the lower court.
No reversible error having been found, the judgment is affirmed.