Hurst v. W.J. Lake & Co.
Oregon Supreme Court
16 P.2d 627 (1932)
W.J. Lake & Company (defendant) contracted to buy horse-meat scraps from Roscoe Hurst (plaintiff) at $50 per ton, with a $5 discount if the scraps contained "less than 50 percent protein"; the delivered scraps tested at 49.53 to 49.96 percent protein, and Lake paid only the discounted $45 rate. Hurst sued for the extra $5 per ton, arguing both parties belonged to a trade group whose custom treated "minimum 50 percent protein" and "less than 50 percent protein" as requiring full price for anything at or above 49.5 percent, rounding as the industry customarily did. The trial court entered judgment on the pleadings for Lake, apparently applying the contract's plain numerical language, and Hurst appealed.
Whether evidence of trade custom and usage is admissible to show that contract terms carry a specialized industry meaning, even though the written contract is not patently ambiguous on its face.