PROCEDURAL HISTORY:
Phillip Eugene Wendling filed suit in Harvey District Court under the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) to receive damages for a breach of an oral contract for the purchase of cattle. The court found in favor of the plaintiff, and the defendant filed an appeal with the State Supreme Court of Kansas.
FACTS:
In July of 1973 Phillip Eugene Wendling a famer met Ted Puls who was a cattle buyer for the Central Livestock Sale in Hutchinson KS. During this encounter Wendling indicated to Puls that he would potentially have some cattle for sale at around mid-august of that same year, to which Puls indicated he might be interested in purchasing the cattle and asked Wendling to contact him at that time. On the August 13 Wendling contacted Puls and told him that he had 103 heads of cattle for sale. On the 14 August Puls and his financial partner travelled to Wendling’s farm to inspect the cattle. After the inspection the two parties agreed on price of $.61 p/lb for 98 heads and $.59 p/lb. OF note the cattle were to be officially weighed on 16 August, and at the close of the initial negotiations on the 14 Watson/Puls gave Wendling and initial down payment of $1000 with a memo notation that it was for “103 cattle”. On 16 August Puls traveled to Wendling’s farm an requested an additional week before he received delivery on the cattle. Wendling agreed with the stipulation that same terms from the initial agreement applied. Puls indicated that the initial terms still applied. On the day of delivery 23 August neither Watson nor Puls showed up to take final delivery for the cattle. Wendling attempted to contact Puls but was unable to do so until 27 August. During that conversation Puls indicated that he was having difficulties that made him unable to take receipt of the cattle immediately. But, indicated to Wendling that he should look into selling the cattle