Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/318

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292
NORTH DAKOTA REPORTS.

contract showed upon its face the price of the lumber at Fergus Falls, and that defendant was to pay freight thereon from Fergus Falls to De Villo. Upon this theory of the case, the amount for which the court directed a verdict was correct. But the defendant had a right to have his version of the contract submitted to the jury for their decision, unless it had the effect to contradict the terms of a written contract between the parties. He offered to prove that before the delivery of this alleged written agreement the plaintiff had agreed to deliver this lumber for $450 at De Villo, it to pay all freights. We think the trial court should have received the evidence, and left the question as to the terms of the contract to the jury. The defendant testified that he did not read the paper; that nothing was said about its being a contract when it was handed to him; that he put it in his pocket without looking at it, as he supposed that it was the bill of lumber that he had given one of the plaintiffs to figure from. At the time of the delivery of this paper to defendant the bargain, according to his statement, had been closed. There was therefore no particular reason why he should expect a written contract to be drawn. He says that he did not go there to make a written contract, and that he received no intimation from the plaintiff that this paper embodied any agreement concerning the lumber he had purchased. This is not the case of an attempt to controvert the terms of a written contract. The defendant insists that he had never entered into any written contract at all in relation to the matter. He was not asked to sign the paper, and if he was not aware that the plaintiff regarded the paper as the written contract between it and him, and if he did not so regard it himself, but thought it was merely the bill of lumber he had before handed to one of the plaintiffs, we are at a loss to ascertain on what principle he can be held bound by its terms, so long as they were unknown to him. Authorities would hardly seem to be necessary in support of a principle so obvious, Indeed, the cases go much further than we are called upon to go in this case. Strohn v. Railroad Co., 21 Wis. 562; King v. Woodbridge, 34 Vt. 565; 2 Whart. Ev. § 927; 4 Lawson, Rights, Rem. & Pr. § 1853; Black v. Nailroad Co., 111 IIL 351. Said