Opinion
36254.
DECIDED SEPTEMBER 5, 1956.
Action for damages. Before Judge Whitman. Fulton Superior Court. March 7, 1956.
Chas. W. Anderson, for plaintiff in error.
John E. Dougherty, Arnold Gambrell, contra.
The trial court did not err in sustaining the general demurrers to the petition.
DECIDED SEPTEMBER 5, 1956.
E. P. Blackstock brought an action against Atlanta Newspapers, Inc., and Ralph L. Fisher, as the defendant corporation's agent, in which it was alleged in substance that the plaintiff had been, for a number of years, a vendor of newspapers at a certain intersection in the City of Atlanta, that the plaintiff purchased papers from the defendant corporation at a fixed price and resold them for a profit, that he was not an employee of the defendant corporation but an independent contractor, that the defendants arbitrarily terminated the plaintiff's contract and began selling newspapers to another person for resale at the intersection where the plaintiff had operated his business for a number of years, that through the years the plaintiff had acquired many customers who purchased newspapers from him daily, and that the conduct of the defendants violated the plaintiff's right to carry on his business as guaranteed by Article I, Section I, Paragraph III of the Constitution of Georgia and similar provisions of the Constitution of the United States. The plaintiff prayed for damages in the sum of $10,000. The defendants' general demurrers to the petition were sustained, and it is to these judgments that the plaintiff excepts.
The petition alleges that the plaintiff had a contract with the defendant corporation under which he purchased newspapers for a fixed price per paper and resold them for a profit, and that the contract was permanent. The petition does not allege that the alleged contract provided that the plaintiff was bound to purchase a certain number of newspapers from the defendant corporation or that the defendant corporation was bound to sell the plaintiff a certain number of newspapers, and although, according to the petition, the alleged contract was permanent it was not alleged how long such contract was to run.
Assuming but not deciding that there was a contract between the plaintiff and the defendant corporation, such contract was not for a definite time and was terminable at the will of either party by giving notice to the other party. Electric Railway Co. of Savannah v. Tennessee Coal c. Co., 98 Ga. 189 (1) ( 26 S.E. 741); Lederle v. City of Atlanta, 164 Ga. 440 (2) ( 138 S.E. 910); Fairmount Creamery Co. v. Collier, 21 Ga. App. 87, 91 ( 94 S.E. 56); and Chappell v. F. A. D. Andrea, Inc., 41 Ga. App. 413 ( 153 S.E. 218). The petition in the present case does not allege that notice was not given the plaintiff of the defendant corporation's intention to cancel or terminate the contract, and construing the petition most strongly against the plaintiff, as must be done on general demurrer, the petition failed to set forth a cause of action against the defendants, and the trial court did not err in sustaining the defendants' general demurrers.
Judgment affirmed. Felton, C. J., and Quillian, J., concur.