Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 48).pdf/263

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LUMRY v. KRYZMARZICK
239

system was installed, the crack in the cylinder had been discovered, and the evidence concerning this crack raises a strong probability that it had been caused by frost. At least, this probability is as strong as that it had been caused by the removal of the broken stud bolt. The outstanding ultimate fact is that no tractor has been supplied to the defendant capable of doing satisfactory work plowing or in fair working condition for plowing. Whether the engine was in proper condition for plowing could not readily be determined by its performance on the road while moving, and it would hardly be a fair presumption that the defendant accepted it for this purpose with an ignition system lacking and with a cracked cylinder.

The supplying of these parts was clearly a condition precedent to the passing of title to the defendant, and any acts of his by way of participation in transporting the machinery or in changing the physical position for the purposes of convenience in facilitating a full performance of the contract cannot be said to constitute a waiver of their effect as conditions precedent. It is not shown that he made any inspection of the engine after the repairing was supposed to have been done and before McDonald started on the journey to his place. Clearly, he did not constitute McDonald his agent for the purpose of accepting the engine. At most, his authority on behalf of the defendant was limited to the mere transportation of the machinery to his place. McDonald indisputably was employed by the plaintiff to put the engine into deliverable condition, and any judgment he exercised with reference to its running condition would be a judgment exercised on behalf of the plaintiff, not the defendant. Certainly McDonald was not constituted both judge and jury to bind both parties by his action. There is, in fact, no evidence that the defendant ever accepted the engine in its present condition or that he was willing to accept it until it was rendered capable of doing the work for which the plaintiff agreed to supply it. The burden of putting it in that condition remained all the time on the plaintiff, and this burden amounted to a condition precedent to the passing of title. And, as stated, in our opinion its effect as a condition precedent is not modified or waived by any participation of the defendant in the physical delivery of the property. It is true that delivery is one of the strongest circumstances indicative of intention to transfer title immediately. Williston on Sales, § 265. But where delivery of physical possession is made only as a step in the performance of the contract and for the purpose of better enabling the seller to perform his remaining obligations, the delivery is conditional only and does not control the pass-