McLure v. Wilson

WOODS, Circuit Judge.

In this action by the seller against the buyer for damages for breach of a contract for the purchase of cotton, the defense was that the contract was void under the South Carolina statute, because the seller did not own the cotton at the time of the sale, and it was not intended that actual cotton should be delivered by the seller and received by the buyer. The evidence is mainly documentary and there is little dispute as to the facts.

The plaintiffs, S. B. Wilson & Co., are cotton merchants in Memphis, Tenn., and Clarksdale, Miss. The defendants were not individually in…