Court Opinion

ID: 9866324
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 03:50:42.188977+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:20:23.833045
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.

Henry, J.
This court did not place “its chief reason for an affirmance of the judgment below on the ground of the admission of appellants in the amended answer, of the seizure of all the property mentioned in the petition.” We did say that this admission precluded them from controverting the fact; 'but the affirmance was, also, expressly based upon the grounds stated in the opinion delivered by the court of appeals, among which will be found the following : “ There was abundant evidence from which the jury might find that defendants Joseph and Max Weil, acting in concert with their co-defendants, directed the sheriff* to seize, and that the sheriff did, by their direction, seize and sell as the property of Massman, goods which the plaintiff* had bought, which he then owned, and in which Massman had no interest whatever. There was unity of interest and of action on the part of all these attaching *218creditors; there was no contest or controversy as to priority; but they would seem, from the evidence, to have been all principals in one joint trespass, directing and managing it together for a common purpose, except as to Max Weil; and as to him there was evidence that he assented to the transaction for his benefit, and received a share of the proceeds of the sale of the goods.” The evidence fully warranted the above remarks of the court of appeals. The goods were all seized, and Joseph Weil, acting for his firm, was in at the beginning, directing the seizure of the goods, and he and Max received their proportion of the proceeds of the sale.

3. bona fide purchaser: estoppel.

The fifth instruction for plaintiff declared, that if defendants signed the composition agreement, agreeing to receive twenty-five per cent in full of their c]ajm against Massman, and signed a receipt for that amount, which, with the composition agreement, was shown to plaintiff, who, relying upon the settlement evidenced by such papers, in good faith advanced money to Massman to enable him to settle with his creditors, and in consideration of such advancement, Massman transferred to him the stock of goods in question, defendants are es-topped from claiming the goods against plaintiff. If the facts mentioned in that instruction existed, the plaintiff was a bona fide purchaser; and proof of these facts conclusively disproved the alleged fraud, and the court might properly have instructed the jury, that, if they so found the facts, their verdict should be for plaintiff. The facts did not create a technical estoppel, and the use of that term was inaccurate; but as the result, if those facts were found, and the instruction had been as it should have been framed, could not have been different,- by reason of such difference in the instruction, we cannot, for that verbal'inaccuracy, reverse the judgment. On those facts, defendants had no right to enforce payment of their debt against these goods, although, in fact, the twenty-five per cent stipulated for had not been paid. So far as plaintiff' and *219defendants in this suit are concerned, the case stood precisely as if it had been paid, in which event they would have had no demand against Massman. Certainly if defendants signed that composition agreement, and executed a receipt for twenty-five per cent, in full of their demand against Massman, on the faith of which plaintiff honestly bought the goods, the purchase thereof by the plaintiff of Mass-man could not have been fraudulent as between plaintiff and these defendants, and evidence of such facts was admissible on that issue. The cases and authorities cited in support of the proposition, that an estoppel must be pleaded if a party would avail himself of it, have no application. The instruction does not ignore tbe other issues in the case, and if “decisive of the case,” it can only be because the evidence clearly established the facts upon which it was predicated. The motion is overruled.
All concur.