Court Opinion

ID: 9832792
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:12:27.832214+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:52.784231
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In our original opinion heretofore filed, through inadvertence, we stated the date of the three transactions named as constituting the negotiations between the parties to this suit as July 27, 1910, when it should have been stated as June 27, 1910. We also refer*152red to such, transactions as “three instruments,” and stated that the “three instruments were simultaneously made, and that they constituted but one general contract between all the parties,” while we should have said that the three transactions were simultaneously had, and that they constituted but one general act forming the basis for the contract thereafter executed by the parties.
Nothing is better settled in this state; than that the court will look through the means used to reach the purpose or purposes which contracting parties had in view in determining whether or not all transactions had between them at the same time, out of which a contract arose were, as a whole, but one general transaction, and that the contracts arising therefrom constitute but one general contract, affecting all the parties to the several transactions. If the circumstances clearly show, as we think they do in the instant case, that the several transactions constituted but one general transaction, they will be treated as parts of the one general transaction, and when taken and considered together, as concluding the general purpose or agreement of all of the parties. When this is done, we cannot escape the conclusion that by these three transactions or agreements it was understood and agreed between said parties that Richards was to, and that he did, transfer all his property named in the transactions to the mortgage company, and in turn the mortgage company was to, and it did, employ MacDonald as its liquidating agent to act under its orders through Richards in the payment of certain of its debts and those of Richards with the $125,000 loaned by MacDonald to the mortgage company under the aforesaid general agreement and understanding of all the parties.
Appellee has filed its motion for rehearing, and therein has complained of the errors mentioned in the first part of this opinion, as well as of our holding that the three transactions mentioned constituted but one general transaction. We have herein admitted . and corrected the two errors referred to, but see no reason to recede from our conclusion that the three transactions constituted but one general transaction culminating in one general contract between the parties. In said motion our attention is also called to the fact that in our original opinion we found that Arch MacDonald paid out $116,000 of the $125,000 loaned by him to the mortgage company before he was advised that the 250 shares of stock of the bank which Richards had agreed to transfer and deliver to the mortgage company had not in fact been delivered to said mortgage company. This finding was error. After a careful re-exami- nation of the statement of facts we are unable to find any evidence showing when MacDonald first learned that said stock had not been delivered. It is not made to appear as to whether he was advised of such nondelivery before he paid out the entire $116,* 000, or at some time thereafter. But as we have 'already said in our original opinion, the right of the appellee bank to recover any part of the money paid out by MacDonald for the mortgage company is subject to the equities between Richards and the mortgage company, the original parties, springing out of the contract between them. Therefore, in view of the fact that Richards failed to deliver 250 shares of bank stock, of the value of $10,000, as a part of the consideration for the making of the contract between himself and the mortgage company, he could not rightfully demand that a debt due by him as indorser to the appellee bank be paid by either the mortgage company or MacDonald out of the money placed in the hands of MacDonald, since MacDonald had paid out $116,000 of the same before said debt became due and before the same was presented to him for payment. If any sum of money, a part of the said $125,-000, less than the value of the 250 shares of bank stock undelivered by Richards, remained in the hands of MacDonald after paying out $116,000 upon the debts designated in the contract between the parties, it was the property of the mortgage company, and neither Richards nor appellee bank could justly demand that any part of same be paid in satisfaction of the note held by said bank while Richards failed and refused to deliver to the mortgage company said 250 shares of bank stock. Since, then, Richards cannot demand a pro rata or further payment of MacDonald in part payment of the note held by the appellee bank, the bank, a third party, who holds a derivative right of. payment, cannot demand such payment.
The motion for rehearing is refused.