Court Opinion

ID: 9827925
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:56:11.978751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:39.299660
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Appellees insist that the special instruction, for the giving of which the judgment is reversed, was not error, “because the controversy is not about the terms of purchase, but concerns only the acreage of the timber,” and “that there is ample evidence to make A. L. Boynton chargeable with' his agent McCo-nico’s knowledge as to the acreage of timber.” The defendant did plead misrepresentation and false representation of the amount of timber on the Waldron tract of 1,000 acres. But the question as submitted by the court, and as it was in the record treated by the parties, could not reasonably be construed as inquiring for the fact of whether or not there was misrepresentation of the amount of timber -on the land, and consequently a material shortage of the amount thought to be purchased, as a plea in avoidance of the terms of the contract. The word “understand” in the question asked was used in the sense of “agree,” and the effect of the question was to inquire for a fact, i. e., whether there was an agreement between A. L. Boynton and Clark and Stone that A. L. Boynton should have all the pine timber, be it little or much, then on the Waldron tract, or all the pine timber on as much as 1,000 acres out of the Waldron tract. The question was entirely directed to “a term” of the agreement, in order that the court could determine from the jury’s answer whether or not both of the parties made a valid oral contract free from mistake pertaining to the pine timber, but a mutual mistake in expressing its terms had been made in reducing it to writing. Jf the jury had answered that Boynton orally agreed, as contended by appellees, to buy the pine timber, be it little or much, then standing on the 1,000 acres of the Waldron tract, then the court would have construed the written contract as if it were so intended by the written contract in evidence. But if the jury had answered that Boynton made the oral agreement with Clark and Stone, as contended by appellant, to purchase “1,000 acres of pine timber” out of the Waldron tract, then the court would have construed the written contract as being without mutual mistake made in reducing it to writing.
All the evidence agrees that McConico’s agency up to the time he went to the attorney’s office was that only of an investigator of the property and to make report thereon to his employer. He had no authority to negotiate terms of contract or act in behalf of the appellant in that respect. The evidence is without dispute that the parties themselves finally made and entered into the oral contract at the Mobberly Hotel, and that no part of it was made by the intervention of an agent. McConico was authorized, according to the evidence, “to outline the contract,” already theretofore agreed upon by the parties, to an attorney, for the purpose of enabling him to reduce it to writing. The parties went to the attorney’s office “to have the contract drawn up,” not to make a contract. McConico only outlined the contract, and “gave the attorney an outline of the contract,” in order that be might reduce it to writing. If McConico made a • mistake in “outlining the contract” to the attorney as to the clause in question, then probably such a mistake would be imputed to appellant and a reformation would obtain. But if-McConico correctly “outlined” the true agreement of both the parties as to the clause in question, then he made no mistake. And the question is not that of whether or not the attorney made a mistake in writing the words in question, for it does not appear in ail the evidence that the attorney did himself make any mistake. There is a difference between the par*514ties themselves as to tlie true term of agreement about the purchase of “the pine timber,” and if a mistake was made as to the agreement, the parties made it.
The. special charge, we think, was error, because what McOonico “understood” about the true terms of the original contract would not be imputable as a matter of law to Boyn-ton. For McOonico had no authority in the evidence to contract or make contracts or to act in behalf of appellant in making a contract; McOonico’s agency being to the extent only of a timber investigator.
It is concluded by the court that the motion for rehearing should be overruled.