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Contracts Keyed to Scott
Merit Music Service, Inc. v. Sonneborn
Facts
The Sonneborns (Defendants) were in the process of purchasing a bar. Merit Music Service, Inc. (Plaintiff) leased coin-operated amusement and vending machines to bars and other establishments, including to Defendants in a bar they previously owned. To help cover the payment for their new bar, Defendants requested a loan from Plaintiff. Defendants put up their liquor license as security for the loan and believed that this was the only security that Plaintiff required. However, testimony indicated that Plaintiff also wanted to require Defendants to lease and install in the new bar a minimum number of Plaintiff machines. Evidence was conflicting as to when and to whom Plaintiff made this request. Plaintiff signed the loan check and obtained the assignment of the liquor license, all in the presence of Defendants’ attorney. Then, later that night, Plaintiff presented Defendants with a form machine-leasing contract and asked them to sign it. Plaintiff had added minimum guarantee clauses to the leasing contract, which also contained a clause forbidding Defendants from using machines from other companies. Defendants, thinking that the contract was simply the note for the loan, signed it without reading it. Defendants’ attorney was no longer present when they signed this contract. Subsequently, Plaintiff filed suit, asking the court to enjoin Defendants from leasing other machines and seeking money damages. Defendants stated that they never would have signed the minimum guarantee leasing contract had they known what it said. They posited that Plaintiff may have altered the agreement after Defendants signed it. The Circuit Court for Baltimore City dismissed Plaintiff’s complaint. Plaintiff appealed.
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