Case Name: A. G. Fowler v. Isaac Lewis
Court: Supreme Court of Texas
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1860-10
Citations: 25 Supp. Tex. 380
Docket Number: 
Parties: A. G. Fowler v. Isaac Lewis.
Judges: 
Reporter: Texas Reports
Volume: 25 Supp.
Pages: 380–382

Head Matter:
A. G. Fowler v. Isaac Lewis.
When there is no error in the charge, and there is conflict in the evidence, the court will not reverse.
The views of an author upon diseases of horses is not evidence, because it is hearsay.
Appeal from Collin. The ease was tried before Hon. Hat. M. Bureord, one of the district judges.
It is almost strictly a fact case. Lewis sued Fowler for the price of a horse, ($150,) sold and delivered to defendant. The defendant plead the general denial, and specially that the plaintiff had warranted and falsely and fraudulently represented the horse to be sound when .he was not, as he had the curb-bone and spavin, and having ascertained his unsoundness he returned him to the plaintiff, and he claimed in reconvention $150 for keep and expense and trouble. The plaintiff' prpved that he sold the horse to defendant for $150; it was proved that plaintiff represented the horse to be sound, and said of a windgall on his hind leg that it would not hurt him. It was proved that defendant tendered back the horse two months afterwards, and that he then said: “Lewis, I have brought the horse back to you. You sold him to me as a sound horse. I told you that I was afraid of the lump inside of his leg, and you insured the horse to be sound, and the lump on the inside of his leg would not hurt him; ” to which Lewis replied: “Fowler, at the time of the sale of the horse, I warranted him to be sound, and that the knots on the inside of his leg would not hurt him.” There was other immaterial conversation, but this constituted the proof of warranty.
A witness swore that he saw the horse some time before Lewis sold him to Fowler, and he thought then, from his movements and the knots on his hind legs, that the horse had the spavin. Other witnesses testified to the same effect; and that very soon after the purchase, when driven, • he would limp; that defendant drove him two or three trips, thirty-five or forty miles, before returning him. Another witness swore, as an expert, that the disease on the horse’s leg was called the “ curb,” which he distinguished from the “spavin.”
The plaintiff proved that the horse was sound, except as to a weak eye; that he was then in the possession of a certain Young, and was worth $100 to $125.
The defendant excepted to the exclusion by the court of a treatise on horses by Youatt, from which he offered to read remarks on the curb, after Colonel Terry had testified as an expert that it was a work of high authority.
The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff for $150, for which there was judgment; from which the defendant appealed.
Harper $ Lewis, for the appellant, insisted,
1. That it was error to exclude the scientific book of Youatt on Horses, and cited 1 G-reenl. Ev., § 139.
2. Cited the rule as to unsoundness of horses. (Chitty on Cont.,463; 2 Kent’s Com., 478; Thornton v. Winn, 12 Wheat., 183; 6 Cond., 588; McKinney v. Foote, 10 Tex., 220.)
Ho brief for the appellee furnished to the Reporter.

Opinion:
Roberts, J.
—The questions in this case are, 1st, Was there a warranty of the horse when sold? 2d, Was the horse unsound as charged? 3d, Was the horse delivered back as alleged, or such tender made as amounted to a delivery back of the horse ?
Hpon all these questions the evidence was somewhat indefinite and unsatisfactory and conflicting. The evidence of the promise to pay $150 for the horse, and the delivery of the horse at the time of the trade, is plain and certain beyond question. And as the evidence tending to establish a defense is conflicting, and the jury have passed upon it, and there being no error in the charge of the court, we cannot set aside the verdict.
The point raised in the bill of exceptions, upon the exclusion of evidence, cannot be sustained, because, 1st, it does not appear what defendant below proposed to read from the book, treating of the diseases of horses, further than that it was in relation to the disease called "curb;" and because, 2d, it would have been hearsay testimony, about a matter upon which a competent witness had already spoken very fully, and doubtless satisfactorily to the court and jury.
The evidence was not of a character to require the court to give the charge asked" by the defendant below, further than it was embraced in the original charge, admitting the charge asked to have, been strictly correct, which it is unnecessary now to consider.
Because there is no error, the judgment must be
Affirmed.