Court Opinion

ID: 9865574
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 19:02:24.670362+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:40:16.137980
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION ROE REHEARING.
Capable counsel for the plaintiff in error filed a motion for rehearing, in which they attack the ruling in the original opinion that the tender was originally unconditional, but ultimately made conditional; the contention being that there was but one continuous, connected, and uninterrupted transaction. The opinion expressly recognizes that the tender, when all the conversation relative thereto is taken together, must be taken as conditional. The ruling is not planted on the proposition that two tenders were made — one unconditional, one conditional. The ruling is that the entire conversation between the agent and the defendant, when taken all together, shows two things: first, a tender was made, *681which was originally unconditional in form, but later, in the same conversation, was made conditional, and that it must therefore be treated as conditional; second, that the defendant, having refused the tender while still in unconditional form, must be taken as having waived an unconditional tender. In other words, the tender when taken all together, being conditional, the plaintiff cannot rely upon an unconditional tender; but he can rely upon a waiver of such a tender, in that the defendant indisputably showed that an unconditional tender, if made, would have been rejected. This is true because he flatly rejected the tender while it still remained in unconditional form. As set forth in the opinion, it appears from the evidence of the agent making the tender for the defendant in error, that, the agent, procured the $1500, which was the amount that the vendor had stated to be the sum due, and went over to see the vendor, whereupon the following conversation occurred: “I come to bring you the money, and he said 'How much ?’, and I said, '$1500, that is what you said I owed you/ and he said, 'Put another $1000 with it, and I will take it and give you a deed/ I did tender him the $1500 due that he said we owed him.” If the original words of the defendant meant anything, they meant that he would not accept the money at all unless an additional $1000 was added to it. The fact that the agent in the same conversation, as shown on cross-examination, may have later coupled the tender,, already rejected, with a condition, does not nullify the fact that the defendant had flatly refused.to accept, the amount of $1500 at all. As we construe the record, this testimony is undisputed. True enough, as brought out in the motion for rehearing, the agent by his own testimony showed that he afterwards attached a condition to the already-rejected tender; true enough the three other disinterested witnesses for the plaintiff, without attempting to set forth the orderly sequence of the conversation, all show in effect that in its final analysis the tender was a conditional one, and' that it was rejected unless another $1000 was added.- But no one disputes the testimony as quoted. No one even now disputes the fact that the tender (however it was made) was rejected. The defendant himself, while disclaiming any recollection as to the reason for his rejection, admitted that he “could have said it,” that is, could have given as his reason that he required another $1000. However that might be, what the agent originally said is *682not denied, and the defendant himself admits that he might have called for another $1000, while testifying that he gave two other reasons for his rejection — namely that he wanted to give the farm to his wife and did not want to sell it at all, and the other reason being that the plaintiff had “kept breaking his contract.” Under any view, it is not denied by anyone that the agent, to begin with, offered the $1500 as testified to by him, and that the defendant vendor flatly refused to accept the same, either for the reason testified to by the agent and the three other witnesses; or, according to the defendant’s evidence, for that reason or for either of the two other reasons assigned by him. The only point of importance is that, to begin with, the amount called for by the contract was tendered, and before any condition was added, was refused outright. The conversation as a whole made the tender conditional under the rulings of this court cited in the opinion; and, as pointed out in the opinion, these decisions have gone so far as to hold that, under the Code, § 20-1105, a tender is conditional even when made in strict compliance with a contract, and without any independent condition being added thereto. The movant strongly urges the testimony of the three witnesses introduced by the plaintiff as showing that the tender was conditional. We had already held in the opinion that, taken as a whole, both the evidence of the agent and that of her witnesses show that the tender was conditional. Therefore we are unable to see how the testimony of the plaintiff’s three witnesses amounts to anything more than what the agent himself had testified to; and the only effect of this testimony is to corroborate what the agent had already said.
In addition to what has already been said, we think that the case comes also squarely within another and different rule, when taken in connection with the rule already stated with respect to the waiver of an amendment to comply with evidence admitted without objection. This additional principle, often stated by this court and the Court of Appeals, is that: “Where a party gives a reason for his conduct and decision touching anything involved in a controversy, he cannot, after litigation has begun, change his ground and put his conduct upon another and different consideration. . . He is estopped from doing it by a settled principle of law.” Fenn v. Ware, 100 Ga. 563, 566 (28 S. E. 238). Thus, even if the tender had been invalid as being coupled with a condition, as *683now for the first time claimed, even then — since the vendor, as shown by the testimony throughout, gave as his reason for not accepting the money either that he wanted an additional $1000 added thereto, or that he wanted to give the property to his wife, or that the plaintiff had “kept breaking the contract,” and in refusing expressly showed that he was in fact ready to make a deed except for the reason or reasons stated — the infirmity now charged with respect to the tender must be taken as having been waived; and he cannot now, after litigation has begun, fall back upon another but expressly repudiated reason for his conduct. As stated in the opinion just cited, in dealing with a somewhat similar situation, “Possibly if she had said that she was not willing to accept the notes with the signature of but one of the parties to whom she undertood she was selling, the objection would have been removed. At any rate, by placing her refusal upon the ground stated, she should be treated as having waived the other things then known to her which were not brought forward as grounds of objection until she was sued.”
A motion for nonsuit under all the evidence adduced is not, as now contended, the equivalent of an objection to the admissibility of the evidence, which has been referred to, when it was offered, nor is it the equivalent of a motion to exclude such testimony. A motion for nonsuit challenges the legal sufficiency of all the evidence admitted, when taken together, to authorize a finding in favor of the party who relies upon it; while an objection to the admissibility of any particular testimony, or a motion to exclude the same, seeks to even preclude its consideration. Accordingly, the case falls within the principles just announced, with the result that, even though nothing appeared but the rejection of a conditional tender for the reason or reasons stated, the vendor would nevertheless be estopped from relying upon any reason for refusing the tender other than those specifically given at the time the tender was made. Especially would this be true where as here the reason now given for attacking the tender was expressly negatived at the time the tender was made.

Motion denied.

All the Justices concur, except Duckworth, J., who dissents.