Pacific Portland Cement Co. v. Food MacHinery & Chemical Corporation

Appellant, Pacific Portland Cement Company, the plaintiff below, is a California corporation. Appellee, Food Machinery and Chemical Corporation, is a Delaware corporation. Its immediate predecessor, the defendant below, Westvaco Chlorine Products Corporation, is a Delaware corporation qualified to do business under the laws of th'e State of California, with a designated agent in the city and county of San Francisco. Westvaco Chlorine Products Corporation, in turn, was preceded in the contractual relationship with the appellant by California Chemical Company. Because they are so designated in the contract around which this litigation turns, we shall refer to the appellant as Pacific, to appellees’s first predecessor as California, to appellee’s immediate predecessor as Westvaco, to Food Machinery and Chemical Corporation as the appellee.

In 1930, California constructed at Newark, California, a plant, from which1 bromine was extracted from bittern, as the sole product of the plant. In 1930, a small plant, designated in the testimony as a “pilot plant,” was constructed as an experiment in the production of magnesium from bittern. The experiment continued for a period of two years,…