ST. LOUIS — The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri refused to grant a summary judgment as requested by Channel Bio LLC over a failed corn crop.
Ralph Richard Bertelsen claimed that in 2011 he planted 462.5 acres of corn from Channel Bio seed. That spring Bertelsen sprayed a herbicide on the corn, and the Channel corn allegedly curled up. Another variety of corn he had planted, DeKalb, didn’t react to the herbicide, according to his suit.
Chris Bertelsen, the seed salesman and a distant cousin of the plaintiff, allegedly promised Ralph Richard Bertelsen he would compensate him for the loss of some of his corn crop if he would “keep quiet” about what happened, the suit claims.
“Plaintiff contends that the cost of corn in 2011 was $6.90 per bushel, which means that Channel owed Plaintiff $229,700 to cover the difference in yield between the Channel corn and the DeKalb corn," the court’s Memorandum and Order filed on Dec. 7, 2017 states.
After the plaintiff originally filed a breach of oral contract and breach of implied warranty against Channel Bio in the Circuit Court of Warren County, Illinois, Channel filed a Motion for Summary Judgment.
Channel argued that “...it is entitled to summary judgment because Plaintiff’s claim for breach of contract fails, in that the parties did not have a meeting of the minds about the terms of the oral contract, and that the terms, if any, were too indefinite to constitute an enforceable contract."
In explaining her decision to deny the motion for summary judgment, Judge Audrey G. Fleissig noted that there are genuine issues of material fact to be decided, and “Plaintiff presented evidence, by way of his deposition, his declaration, and the deposition of his son, Brian Bertelsen, that he entered into an oral contract with Chris Bertelsen in July 2011 and that they established clear terms at that time. This, Plaintiff argues, provided the parties with a definite formula by which to determine the amount Channel was to pay to Plaintiff.”