Court Opinion

ID: 9443981
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:36:53.777925+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:39.930005
License: Public Domain

*401RIVES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The learned District Court found that the defendant agreed to send plaintiff $3,000.00 to be used in drilling an oil well, a wildcat operation which might or might not produce, that relying upon that promise, the plaintiff made a contract with a driller to drill the well and incurred a total expense of $3,789.73. The plaintiff had bound himself in writing to convey to the defendant a one-fourth interest in the property. The defendant received and retained the plaintiff’s binding obligation, and doubtless if the well had produced oil the deal would have gone through. When it resulted in a dry hole, the defendant sought refuge in the statute of frauds.
The complaint alleged in the alternative that certain services, acts and performances were procured and paid for by the plaintiff for the defendant at the defendant’s instance and request of the reasonable value of $4,139.84, and alternatively sought to recover said sum. The District Court held that the drilling of the well was “for the use and benefit of both the plaintiff and the defendant”, and gave judgment for one-half of the actual cost of such drilling.
The plaintiff testified that he told the defendant that he would have to drill a well in order to perfect his one-half interest in the property, and that he would proceed with the drilling upon his faith in defendant’s promise to send the $3,-000.00. He further testified that he was not in position to incur such expenses alone and that he would not have done so if he had not been led to believe that the defendant would pay the $3,-000.00. The plaintiff has incurred expenses for the defendant, at the defendant’s request, and from which, if successful, the defendant would have profited. There was no evidence to the contrary.
It seems to me that the statute of frauds would not be violated if the defendant were required to pay his part of such expenses. The alternative claim on which the District Court rendered judgment is not on the contract, but in quantum meruit, 58 Am.Jur., Work and Labor, Sec. 35, citing Kearns v. Andree, 107 Conn. 181, 139 A. 695, 59 A.L.R. 599. Chevalier v. Lane’s, Inc., Tex.Civ.App., 208 S.W.2d 113, 115, affirmed 147 Tex. 106, 213 S.W.2d 530, 535, 6 A.L.R.2d 1045; 49 Am.Jur., Statute of Frauds, Secs. 560, 568-572; compare Texas Co. v. Burkett, 117 Tex. 16, 296 S.W. 273, 279, 280, 54 A.L.R. 1397. I, therefore, respectfully dissent.