upholding finding that 60 days was reasonable notice for terminating long-term distribution relationship
How later courts described this case
- upholding finding that 60 days was reasonable notice for terminating long-term distribution relationship
- “The law is well settled in Wisconsin that by the conduct and words of the parties the court can imply a contract.”
- “Because none of the prior agreements ... contained termination dates, the agreements were terminable at will.”
- consideration may be implied from parties’ conduct
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Hallows, Dieterich, and Gordon, JJ.
(dissenting).
We respectfully dissent from that portion of the judgment which limits the distributor to damages for a period of sixty days after the California Wine Association terminated the exclusive character of the agency.
The contract between the parties did not spell out the mechanics for terminating the exclusive distributorship. Under such circumstances, the law requires that a reasonable period of time elapse between the notice of termination and the actual end of the exclusive distributorship. Milwaukee v. West Allis (1935), 217 Wis. 614, 618 , 258 N. W. 851 ; Voechting v. Grau (1882), 55 Wis. 312, 317 , 13 N. W. 230 ; Irish v. Dean (1876), 39 Wis. 562, 568 . The rule requiring reasonable notice in order to terminate a distributorship has more recently been upheld in J. C. Millett Co. v. Park & Tilford Distillers Corp. (D. C. Cal. 1954), 123 Fed. Supp. 484, 493. See also 4 Williston, Contracts (rev. ed.), p. 2852, sec. 1027A.
For an extended period of time (in excess of thirteen years) the Peckarsky Companies enjoyed an exclusive distributorship. Through their own efforts, they created the *134 broad acceptance which had been obtained for the manufacturer’s product. For these reasons we consider that the trial court erred in fixing only sixty days as a reasonable period of notice for termination.
We consider that in this regard the damages found by the trial court for the several Peckarsky Companies are inadequate, and we would favor remanding the case for a redetermination of the damages based upon a longer period of notice. It would seem to us that the trial judge might well have fixed the period at six months; in any event, his setting the period at sixty days was inadequate.