Court Opinion

ID: 9662336
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:06:14.940741+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:38.738565
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing
PER CURIAM:
Defendants, in their motion for rehearing, contend our statement of facts in this equity suit gives credence to incredible testimony of plaintiff Bogad, failed to give due consideration to the testimony of defendant Waehter, and that we reached an erroneous result.
Defendants say the transcript does not show that “Bogad testified * * that Waehter informed him * # that the wooden sewer would hold for 10 or 15 years, and that a septic tank was not needed.” (Op. ¶ 5.) The sewer was a wooden sewer with no septic tank; and defendants have inadvertently overlooked Bogad's testimony that Waehter told him ‘ ‘ the idea was to put the sewer in and sheeting board, and the sewer would hold 10 or 15 years and you never need a septic tank.” (Tr. 31, 34, 73, 74.)
Defendants question the statement: “Bogad informed Waehter he would purchase if he could raise $3,500 by an additional loan on his home.” (Op. ¶ 5). Bogad, on cross-examination, so testified'. (Tr. 76.) At that time the Bogad home was security for a balance of $5,357.25 on a loan. Waehter testified: “He [meaning Bogad] suggested that if I would increase the loan to $3,500.00, he would come down [616] here and spend it in improvements and put up some cottages.” (Tr. 237.) The checks connected with the $3,500 loan are dated: $500, August 24, 1951, an advancement, and for the balance, August 31,1951.
Next defendants take exception to the statements (emphasized here) in the paragraph beginning: “Mr. Bogad is plaintiffs’ only *436witness on the issue of waiver. It is true as defendants state that Bogad’s testimony is confusing and contradictory in places; but certain essential facts are not disputed.” Defendants say they stated1 Bogad’s testimony was “conflicting, contradictory, unreasonable, unbelievable and incredible.” We are unable to follow defendants in their claim that Bogad’s testimony was unreasonable, unbelievable and incredible. Wachter’s testimony corroborated Bogad on some material facts. We remain of the opinion that on the issue of waiver, the issue tried, certain essential facts are not disputed'. Bogad borrowed $3,500 to make improvements at the Trailer Court, not to pay the $400 monthly installments. Defendant Wachter knew this and knew that improvements were being made. He accepted payments of the installments after their due date and also partial installments after the due date and after the forfeiture date under the contract terms. It is not determinative on the issue of waiver whether Bogad deposited his payments in the Waynesville bank or took the bank deposit slips to Wachter’s office for Wachter to enter the credits in Bogad’s receipt book. Defendants say, without reference to transcript pages, the improvements took place in August, September and October, 1951, and also that they had been completed by November 20, 1951. If it is so established of record, we have inadvertently overlooked it. The date when the improvements were completed within the six months involved is not determinative. The material fact is that Bogad did make improvements of a permanent nature and defendants, under the record, are enriched thereby. Wachter testified that the records Bogad brought to his office in February, 1952, showed total expenditures of $2,575.79; and1 Wachter’s complaint at the time was that Bogad was collecting enough rents to timely pay the $400 monthly installments but did not do so, as Wachter testified: “I said: ‘You are not fooling me, you got that rent’ ”; “I told him he had broken his contract, and that I was putting Rauhaut in charge. ’ ’
Defendants’ complaints do not call for a change in the result. The foregoing are illustrative thereof.
With defendants waiving and thereafter suddenly without reasonable notice asserting a forfeiture and arbitrarily and wrongfully ousting Bogad and taking possession of the Trailer Court without recognition of any rights that existed or might exist in Bogad, Bogad’s plea of being ready, able and willing to perform and offering and tendering compliance with such orders as the court might make as a condition to equitable relief, was a submission to the jurisdiction and orders of the court and a sufficient offer of performance in the unusual circumstances of record. Kyner v. Bryant, 353 Mo. 1212, 187 S. W. 2d 202, 206[5, 6], mentioned in the opinion; Deichmann v. Deichmann, 49 Mo. 107; Cape Girardeau-Jackson I. R. Co. v. Light & D. Co., 277 Mo. 579, 210 S. W. 361, 372 (II).
The motion for rehearing is overruled.