Title: Standard Oil Company v. Johnson
Citation: 165 So. 2d 361
Docket Number: N/A
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: May 28, 1964

165 So. 2d 361 (1964)
STANDARD OIL COMPANY
v.
Murray L. JOHNSON.
2 Div. 433.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
May 28, 1964.
*362 David J. Vann, White, Bradley, Arant, All &amp; Rose, Birmingham, for appellant.
Richard L. Jones, Birmingham, and P. M. Johnston, Aliceville, for appellee.
COLEMAN, Justice.
This is an appeal by defendant from judgment for plaintiff in action for fraud based on principles stated in § 108, Title 7, Code 1940, which recites:
Errors complained of are that the court erred in: rulings on demurrers to certain pleadings, refusing affirmative charges for defendant, refusing a charge requested by defendant, and overruling defendant's motion for new trial.
Assignments 13 and 15 recite:
These assignments allege no error committed by the trial court and are insufficient to present any question for review. Thomas v. Brook, 274 Ala. 462, 149 So. 2d 809, and cases there cited.
Assignments 17 and 18 recite:
Such assignments of error raise nothing for review. Thomas v. Brook, supra.
In brief outline, plaintiff charges that defendant furnished to its distributor a tank mounted on a truck; that plaintiff was employed by defendant's distributor to deliver petroleum products to customers; that plaintiff, with defendant's knowledge and consent, used the tank for making deliveries to customers; that defendant represented to plaintiff that the tank had a volume capacity of 1066 gallons; that said representation was false in that said tank had a capacity of 1069 gallons; that, as a *363 proximate consequence of the misrepresentation, plaintiff was caused to pay to defendant for alleged shortages $2,000.00, was accused of theft and embezzlement, suffered injury to his reputation, suffered impairment to his credit, was caused to lose his employment, and his employability was impaired.
The case was submitted to the jury on Count A which recites:
"Count A
Assignment 7 is that the court erred in overruling defendant's demurrer to Count A. Defendant does not specify which ground of demurrer was good, but its argument appears to be in support of Ground 19 which recites that "it does not appear that Plaintiff and the Defendant were opposite parties in any legal relationship which would subject the Defendant to liability under the facts alleged in the complaint."
Defendant's argument is that, "The innocent mistake provisions of Title 7, § 108, are unusual; they apply only where the parties are `opposite parties.'" and that here there was no contractual or employment relationship *364 such as to give rise to such a high degree of responsibility.
Neither the statute nor the cases cited, as we understand them, require that, in order to recover under § 108, Title 7, for damage caused by misrepresentation made by mistake and innocently, the deceived party must be in a contractual or employment relation to the defendant. We are of opinion that the statute does not make, between misrepresentations made wilfully to deceive and misrepresentations made by mistake and innocently, the distinction which defendant now contends for. We do not think an employment or contractual relation is essential in either case.
"An unbending rule can not be laid down for all cases, where, upon the representations of an uninterested person, one trusts another, and suffers loss. Much must depend on the circumstances of the particular case." Einstein v. Marshall, 58 Ala. 153, 163. In the Einstein case, the defendant had no employment or contractual relation with the injured party. There defendant had written a letter representing that a merchant was good for several hundred dollars of credit and that was the representation charged to be false. The opinion indicates that the defendant would be liable if the representation was knowingly false or was made recklessly without the maker knowing whether it be true or false, and acted on to plaintiff's loss.
In another case, this court said:
According to the allegations of Count A, the misrepresentation of the capacity of the tank was the misrepresentation of a material fact; the tank was the property of defendant and was used by plaintiff, with defendant's knowledge and consent, to deliver petroleum products under an agreement between plaintiff and defendant's agent. We think these allegations sufficient to show that the alleged misrepresentation was made to be relied upon by plaintiff and as an inducement to plaintiff, and that plaintiff did, in making delivery of petroleum products, rely on the representation to his injury. Accordingly, we hold that the demurrer to Count A was overruled without error.
To the complaint, defendant pleaded the general issue; that plaintiff consented to the injuries for which damages are claimed; estoppel; the statutes of limitation of one, three, and six years; and the statute of limitation of one year from the date of discovery of the fact alleged to constitute fraud, § 42, Title 7, Code 1940, which recites:
The court overruled plaintiff's demurrers to all pleas except the plea of estoppel, Plea 4. The court sustained plaintiff's demurrer to Plea 4 and this ruling is Assignment 9. Plea 4 recites:
Neither party cites authority which is in point on the question of the sufficiency of Plea 4. Plaintiff does not point out which ground of demurrer to Plea 4 is a good ground. Possibly the learned trial court sustained the demurrer to Plea 4 on Grounds 9 and 12 of plaintiff's demurrer to the pleas. These grounds recite as follows:
No other ground of demurrer applicable to Plea 4 appears to be well taken.
It may be conceded, at this stage of the pleading, that the allegations show that plaintiff's shortages were the result of defendant's misrepresentation as to the capacity of the delivery tank; but we are not able to affirm that the allegations show that plaintiff's alleged admissions that he had misappropriated defendant's funds and property, concealed his misappropriations by fictitious reports and checks which were not drawn on accounts on which plaintiff was entitled to draw, or destroyed his own records, were also the result of defendant's misrepresentation of the capacity of the tank. These acts of plaintiff were not, as we understand Count A and Plea 4, shown to be the result of the misrepresentation of the tank's capacity but were alleged to be plaintiff's own voluntary acts. This court has said:
In Plea 4, defendant asserts that plaintiff had made representations to defendant who relied on them to defendant's hurt. If plaintiff, voluntarily, made representations to defendant and defendant acted on them to its prejudice, we do not think plaintiff can later be permitted to say that his representations were not true. We are, therefore, of opinion that the court erred in sustaining the demurrer to Plea 4.
*366 To defendant's pleas, plaintiff filed three replications; to wit, a joinder of issue on the pleas and special Replications 2 and 3. Special Replication 3 recites as follows:
The exhibits referred to recite in partinent part as follows:
"Dear Sir
"Reference yours of May 21st.
The plaintiff is Murray L. Johnson, sometimes spelled Murry L. Johnson. The complaint was filed June 30, 1961.
Assignment 12 is that the court erred in overruling defendant's demurrer to Replication 3.
Defendant argues that five grounds of demurrer to the replication were well taken. Those grounds and defendant's argument are to effect that Replication 3 is not a good answer to the plea of the statute of limitation of one year from the date of discovery of the fact alleged to constitute fraud, in that the allegations of Replication *369 3 neither traverse, confess and avoid, nor present matter of estoppel as to said plea. Defendant cites Burnett &amp; Bean v. Miller, 205 Ala. 606, 88 So. 871, where this court said:
Plaintiff states in brief that the legal question here is did plaintiff's discovery, in April, 1960, of the change in calibration, commence the running of the statute, or did the running of the statute commence in October, 1960, when plaintiff "learned for the first time that the matters contained in the Defendant's letter of May 1960 were not true?"
Plaintiff states in brief:
Plaintiff's argument is to effect that defendant's letter of May 24, 1960, falsely led plaintiff to believe that the tank had been recalibrated contemporaneously with the remounting of the tank on another truck. We are unable to agree that Replication 3 shows that the letter is false in this respect. Even if it be conceded that plaintiff was led to believe that recalibration and remounting were contemporaneous, we fail to see how the inducing of this belief in plaintiff would toll the statute of limitation of one year after discovery "of the fact constituting the fraud."
The fact constituting the fraud is alleged in the complaint to be the false *370 representation that the tank held 1066 gallons when it really held 1069 gallons. Plaintiff's entire case rests on the proposition that this false representation proximately caused his injury. In Exhibit A to Replication 3, by letter dated April 30, 1960, plaintiff stated that he had learned that the tank gauging was incorrect and "made me check short 3 gallons on each load that I sold."
Plaintiff was fully advised of the fact constituting the fraud on April 30, 1960, the day he wrote the letter. As plaintiff admits in brief, if defendant had remained silent, the statute would have run. We do not think that defendant's letter of May 24 tolled the statute, and are of opinion that Replication 3 is not a sufficient answer to the plea of the statute of limitation of one year after discovery of the fact constituting the fraud, and hold that the court erred in overruling demurrer to Replication 3.
Assignment 6 asserts that the court erred in refusing defendant's requested Charge 25 which recites:
Charge 25 was refused without error for two reasons:
First, the allegation in Replication 3 is that ". . . . whereas tank gauges sometimes do change . . . ." and not ". . . . frequently change. . . .," as stated in Charge 25.
Second, Charge 25 unduly singles out and emphasizes a particular fact and tends to obscure and minimize other material evidence bearing on the same question.
In Assignments 4 and 5, defendant asserts that the court erred in refusing affirmative charges, with and without hypothesis, requested in writing by defendant.
Supreme Court Rule 9 provides that, ".... if the insufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict or finding, in fact or law, is assigned, then the statement (of facts) shall contain a condensed recital of the evidence given by each witness in narrative form bearing on the points in issue so as to fully present the substance of the testimony of the witness clearly and concisely ...." (Par. Supplied.)
Defendant, in brief, has not only failed to set out a condensed recital of the evidence given by each witness; defendant has altogether omitted from its brief a section under the heading "Statement of the Facts." It is true that defendant has undertaken, under the heading "Statement of the Case," to set out some parts of the evidence, but that section is not the place for reciting the evidence in narrative form. Moreover, defendant's statement of the evidence is argumentative. The place in brief for argument is under the heading "Argument."
The transcript of evidence covers 178 pages, typewritten in Elite type. The reporter's certificate refers to the cause as being heard on two days, "January 23-24, 1962."
Appellant having refrained from making a recital of the evidence in compliance with Rule 9, we will not attempt to recite the facts which, in our view, justified submitting the case to the jury. Case v. O'Shields, 30 Ala.App. 254, 4 So. 2d 202; Lamar Life Insurance Company v. Kemp, *371 30 Ala.App. 138, 1 So. 2d 760; Limbaugh v. Comer, 265 Ala. 202, 90 So. 2d 246; Woodward Iron Company v. Stringfellow, 271 Ala. 596 [2], 126 So. 2d 96; Case v. Ward, Ala. 160 So. 2d 859.
In the Stringfellow case, with respect to an assignment of error based on refusal of an affirmative charge requested by defendant, this court, referring to the above quoted provision of Rule 9, said:
The reason for this holding has been stated as follows:
Defendant can take nothing by Assignments 4 and 5 in the case at bar.
Assignment 19 charges error in overruling defendant's motion for a new trial. In argument of this assignment, defendant merely refers to propositions which have already been considered and it thus appears that further consideration of this assignment is unnecessary.
For errors in sustaining demurrer to Plea 4 and overruling demurrer to Replication 3, the judgment is reversed and the cause is remanded.
Reversed and remanded.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and LAWSON and GOODWYN, JJ., concur.