Case ID: tex_31/html/0161-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Latimer, J. Caldwell, J. and Lindsay, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Napoleon B. Barbee v. James Hail et al.
    Where the charge of the court was more favorable to the defendant than the evidence warranted, he has no right to complain.
    Appeal from Houston. The case was tried before Hon. Reuben A. Reeves, one of the district judges.
    The note called for $250, for the hire of a negro woman twelve months, dated 18th January,. 1864, due on the 24th of December thereafter. The defendant proved nothing about any promise to receive payment in Confederate money, but did prove that the value of the hire was not over $60. Hpon this he claimed the benefit of the scaling ordinance. The jury found for the amount of the note.
    
      D. A. Nunn, for appellants.
    Ho brief for the appellee has been furnished to the Reporter.
    
   Latimer, J.

—This is a suit founded on a note for $250. Defendant pleaded that the dollars mentioned and called for in the note alluded to Confederate money.

The judge charged the jury that if they believed from the evidence that it was understood by the parties at the time the note was given that the note was to be paid in Confederate money, the plaintiff would be entitled to a verdict for the value in specie of the (Confederate money at the time the note fell due.

As the jury did not find for less than what the note called, it is presumed that they did not consider that the defendant had sustained his plea by the testimony. The charge of the judge was as favorable as the defendant could ask for, and as there is no statement of facts on the question at issue we cannot say that there was any error that the defendant could complain of. The judgment of the court below is

Aeeirmed.

Caldwell, J. and Lindsay, J.

—We concur in the judgment that has been rendered in this case, but dissent from the statement of the case, which gives an implied recognition of the ruling of the court below in receiving evidence to vary the terms of the written contract.