Court Opinion

ID: 9831432
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:06:18.841841+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:34.758021
License: Public Domain

AVILLSON, C. J.
(after stating the facts as above).
The stipulation in the policy Set out in the statement above was a valid one, and, if it was violated, operated to relieve plaintiff in error of the liability defendant in error claimed against it. 26 C. J. 228 et seq. Did it appear that the stipulation had been violated? Plaintiff in error insists it did, in that the evidence conclusively showed, it says, a conditional, if not an absolute, sale of the coupé to Calloway. Defendant in error, on the other hand, insists that the transaction with Calloway did not affect defendant in error’s interest in the property, because, he says, it passed to Calloway nothing more than an option (that is, a mere right to purchase the coupé if he chose to do so) he never exercised. AVe agree with defendant in error that if the right Calloway *467acquired was no more than an option never exercised, the stipulation was not violated; but, giving full effect to the testimony of defendant in error as a witness, referred to in the statement above, and to all other testimony adduced on his behalf, we ■ think it nevertheless conclusively appeared that the right Calloway acquired wag more than an option — that he became the owner of the coupS, with a right, exercisable within a reasonable time if the condition of the car was not materially changed, to exchange it for the sedan. London Assurance Corp. v. Dean (Tex. Civ. App.) 281 S. W. 624; Fire Ass’n v. Perry (Tex. Civ. App.) 185 S. W. 374; 26 C. J. 229 et seq. The testimony of defendant in error that Calloway “took (quoting) my ear and was to come hack in a day or two” indicated that he was to exercise the right he had to exchange the coupé for the Sedan within that time; and that having failed to exercise it within that time, and not offering to exercise it within the six or seven days intervening between the time the coupS was delivered to him and the time it was burned, he had forfeited his right to make the exchange. It is clear, we think, that the interest defendant in error had in the coupé at the time it was burned was not that of an owner, but that of a mortgagee only. We have read and considered all the cases (to wit, Home Ins. Co. v. Chowning, 192 Ky. 327, 233 S. W. 731; Philadelphia Underwriters’ Agency v. Moore [Tex. Com. App.] 229 S. W. 491; Ins. Co. v. O’Bannon, 109 Tex. 281;1 Detroit Fire & Marine Ins. Co. v. Boren-Stewart Co. [Tex. Civ. App.] 203 S. W. 382; Terminal Ice & Power Co. v. American Fire Ins. Co. [Mo. App.] 187 S. W. 565; and Southern Casualty Co. v. Landry [Tex. Civ. App.] 266 S. W. 806) cited by defendant in error as supporting his contention, and think none of them does so.
The judgment will be reversed, and judgment will be here rendered that defendant jn error take nothing by his suit against plaintiff in error.

 206 S. W. 814, 1 A. L. R. 1407.