A contract will be read in the light of well known conditions; a
contract made in Porto Rico to grind sugar cane will be presumed to
be a contract to grind in the grinding season.
What the grinding season is in a particular locality may be
established by parol evidence.
Nothing in the contract under consideration in this case takes
it out of the ordinary rule that performance of an absolute
undertaking is not excused by such occurrences as breaking of
machinery, etc.
5 P.R.F. 96 affirmed.
The facts, which involve the construction of sugar grinding
contracts in Porto Rico, are stated in the opinion. Plaintiff in
error was defendant below.
MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an action upon notarial contracts to grind all the
plaintiff's sugar cane raised upon specified plantations let to him
for a certain number of zafras or grinding seasons, ending in 1912.
The breaches alleged are failure to grind the cane, "during the
months of January to June," 1908, and to furnish the necessary cars
and men to handle the cane, as agreed. At the trial, it was proved
that the cane was ready to be ground and should have been ground
between the months of January and the first weeks of June, but that
a large part of the crop was ground in the latter part of June, and
through July,
Page 222 U. S. 482
to the great damage of the plaintiff. A failure to furnish the
proper number of cars for a part of the time also was established.
The contract did not fix a period within which the grinding should
be done otherwise than by reference to the zafras to which it
extended, and it was objected by demurrer, requests for rulings,
and exceptions to evidence that, as the written agreement was
silent, it could not be made more definite by parol. But the court
ruled the other way and sustained a verdict of $15,000 for the
plaintiff, whereupon the case was brought to this Court.
It appears to us not to need extended argument to show that the
court was right. A contract to grind sugar cane implies on its
face, if read with any knowledge of the business, that it has
reference to seasons, and that it is more definite than a simple
grammatical interpretation of the words would express. An
illustration suggested at the argument brings it home to those of
us whose experience has been in the North. A contract to reap a
field of wheat, with no mention of time, would not leave the
contractor free to choose his own time. The grinding of cane must
be done in the grinding season, and a contract to grind is a
contract to grind in the grinding season. Parol evidence may be
necessary to show what that season is in a given place, as it
constantly is in order to translate the words and the implications
of words into things; but the season, when ascertained, is the
limit by the very meaning of the words used, when used in a
business contract made with regard to one of the great industries
of the world.
A part of the delay seems to have been caused by the repeated
breaking down of the machinery, but nothing appears to take the
case out of the ordinary rule that performance of an absolute
undertaking is not excused by facts of that sort. Nothing else in
the case seems to us to call for remark. The trial was conducted
fairly and intelligently, and the defendant must bear the loss.
Judgment affirmed.