23 Fla. 368 | Fla. | 1887
delivered the opinion of the court:
The appellant was plaintiff and the appellees were defendants in the Circuit Court. These defendants are I). K. Hickey, who is the party of the first part, and the John Shiletto Company, a body corporate, Henry Oskamp and A. Lotze’s Sons & Co., who are the several parties of the third part to the contract set out in the statement of the case.
The declaration alleges that the defendants became liable by such contract to pay debts contracted for the purpose of conducting the hotel for the uses-mentioned and purposes sec forth in the contract, and that thereafter the plaintiff supplied gas of the value of $699.17 for the hotel, and that such gas was used therein while it was being conducted under the terms of the contract. The defendants demurred to the declaration and the demurrer having been sustained and the plaintiff not desiring to amend his declaration, judgment was rendered in favor of the defendants- and the plaintiff appealed.
The question before us is whether or not the defendants became liable by virtue simply of this contract to pay debts contracted in conducting the hotel.
It is apparent from the terms of the contract that Hickey,, the party of the first part, was the lessee of the Hew Con
Looking at this agreement as a whole we are unable to infer from its' terms alone, or from its terms considered with reference to the situation and purposes of the several parties, that there was any purpose to create by it any liability upon the parties of the third part, or, we may also
It is true the contract in stating Ghipley’s powers says
These net earnings, should there be any, are all the benefit parties of the third part were to receive irom the operations of the hotel, and the considerations they were to give for such benefits are plainly stated, and it would do violence both to the spirit and language of the agreement to hold that in addition to the expressed concessions and considerations for the same they had assumed a liability for the hotel operations and become jointly liable with, or a partner, if not the principal of Hickey, as to such operations.
The first point in construing a contract is to ascertain what was the meaning and understanding of the parties, as shown by the language used, applied to the subject matter. 2 Parsons on Contracts, 495. Ho-violence is done to either any rule of language or of law in the conclusion which we reach.
Judgment affirmed.