William Strong

“ If the evidence did establish or tended to establish such deceit and fraud, for such a purpose, and if the plaintiff was injured thereby, as his petition alleged, it was erroneous to charge the jury that the suit could not be maintained. Competition in efforts to secure the market is doubtless lawful. A manufacturer may by superior energy, or enterprise, supply all the buyers of a particular article, and thus leave no market for similar articles manufactured by others. ”

“ Hence, in actions for fraud, large latitude is always given to the admission of evidence. If a motive exist prompting to a particular line of conduct, and it be shown that in pursuing that line a defendant has deceived and defrauded one person, it may justly be inferred that similar conduct towards another, at about the same time, and in relation to a like subject, was actuated by the same spirit. ”

“ The court, however, erred in charging the jury that if they believed 'the corporation never gave any authority to the defendant, Watkins, to assent to the proposal, or draft agreement, in their behalf, and in their name, and never sanctioned the same as a corporate act, the suit could not be maintained against them.' If by this it was meant that no suit upon the contract could be maintained, the instruction was correct, but this could not have been so understood by the jury. ”