Hillside Packing Ass'n v. Cowles

THOMPSON, J. The plaintiff, which is a cooperative fruit marketing association, has appealed from a judgment refusing to grant an injunction prohibiting the defendant, C. 0. Cowles, from delivering his crop of oranges for the year 1934 to the Native Son Orchards Company, contrary to his written agreement with the association. The marketing contract which Cowles signed contained a clause permitting him to withdraw therefrom upon giving a specified notice. Cowles owed the Bank of America a sum of money. By the terms of his contract with the plaintiff he agreed to authorize it to pay the bank from his account with the association the sum of ten cents per box for all fruit so marketed. Two months after signing the marketing agreement, the bank for its own benefit procured Cowles to sign a written waiver of the withdrawal clause of his contract. The association was not a party to that waiver. In June, 1934,'Cowles notified the plaintiff of his withdrawal from the contract pursuant to the terms thereof, and subsequently contracted with the defendant MacDonald for the Native Son Orchards Company to market his oranges. The bank was not a party to the original marketing agreement, and it consented to his withdrawal from that contract.

The appellant contends that Cowles’ waiver of the withdrawal clause of his marketing agreement precludes him from terminating the contract and that the injunction against delivering his crop of oranges to the Native Son Orchards Company should therefore issue.

[28]The plaintiff is a nonprofit, cooperative fruit-marketing association, duly organized, with its principal place of business at Lindsay in Tulare County. The defendant, Cowles, owns 207 acres of citrus fruit land in Tulare County. September 25, 1933, he signed a marketing contract with the plaintiff, agreeing to deliver to the association his entire crop of oranges produced on a specified 166-acre tract of his land for a term of fifteen years. Section 6 of that contract authorizes the producer to withdraw therefrom upon written notice served during the first fifteen days of June of any year within the term of the agreement. That paragraph reads in part:

“Any party of the second part may be released from the terms of this agreement and end the same as to him, by filing with the secretary of the said party of the first part a written notice of his desire to be so released during the first fifteen (15) days of June of any year during the term of this agreement. Said release and termination shall thereupon become effective at the close of the then crop year, ...”