Court Opinion

ID: 9858646
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:34:22.364206+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:55:22.709676
License: Public Domain

On Appellants’ Motion For Rehearing.
One of the points presented by appellants in their brief is that the answer of the jury to question No. 2 that plaintiffs exercised and accepted the offer under the option according to its terms is not supported by any evidence. This point is also raised in appellants’ motion for a re-hearing. The theory on which appellants rely in support of this point is that the letter of May 26, 1950, which demand*769ed that appellants furnish an abstract of title or guarantee title and deed, upon which appellees would exercise the option and pay $2250.00 was a counter proposition and not an acceptance of the ■ option. We are not at all in accord with this proposition. However, as pointed out in .our original opinion, the letter of May 26, 1950, was signed by Vincent P. Kirgan alone. It does not purport to have been written in behalf of his wife. Also, as pointed out in our opinion, the lease was assigned to the wife as her separate property and the restaurant was purchased by her as her separate property. The record reveals that the husband, Vincent P. Kirgan, was managing the restaurant for his wife. There is no other evidence in the record which tends to show that Vincent P. Kirgan was authorized by his wife to exercise the option for her. It is elementary we think that an option of this character must be accepted or exercised by the optionee strictly in accordance with its terms in order to create a contract with the optionor. The Acts of 1913, 1917 and 1921, Art. 4621 Vernon Sayles’ Annotated Civil Statutes 1914, and Vernon’s Annotated Civil Statutes Sup. 1918, 1922, Vernon’s Ann. Civ.St. art. 4614, grant to the wife the sole management, control and disposition of her separate property, both real and personal. Prior to 1913 'the sole management of the separate property of the wife was given to the husband. Under the present law the wife may appoint her husband as her agent to manage her separate property, but in the absence of such appointment he has no more authority to bind her than any other person. See Gohlman, Lester & Co. v. Whittle, 114 Tex. 548, 273 S.W. 808. The mere fact that the husband was authorized to manage the restaurant for his wife may be some evidence of his authority to exercise the option for her but we think is insufficient to support the finding that the option was accepted by plaintiffs. It was not only necessary that Mrs. Kirgan should authorize her husband to exercise the option for her, but also that notice of this fact should be brought home to the Moores, before there could be a valid acceptance of the option. There is no evidence of such notice other than the letter of May 26, 1950. This does not purport to have been written by Kirgan on behalf of his wife but by him “as the present lessee under the lease”, which he was not. It states “I am prepared to pay”, not that his wife is prepared to pay “upon delivery to me of general warranty deed”, impliedly we think meaning a conveyance of the property to him — not to Mrs. Kirgan, iri view of the subsequent language “Please give this your attention that we may close the sale of this property to me within the next, week.” (Emphasis ours.) We therefore hold that there is no evidence that Mrs. Kirgan gave notice to the Moores of her acceptance of the option and that the option was not accepted by the letter of May 26, 1950.
The lease contains the following provision :
“Provided, however, that if said rent or any part thereof shall remain unpaid for ten days after it shall become due and without demand made therefor, it shall be lawful for said lessor or his agents, heirs or assigns without notice or demand into said premises to reenter and the same to have again, repossess and enjoy as in his first and former state, and thereupon this lease and everything therein contained on the lessor’s behalf to be done and performed shall cease, determine and be utterly void.” (Emphasis ours.)
The undisputed evidence shows that rio rent was paid after June 4, 1950. However, under this provision the lessee’s breach of the covenant to pay rent did not ipso facto work a forfeiture of her rights under the lease, there being no express provision to that .effect and the above quoted clause being a condition subsequent and not a limitation on the estate of lessee. 27 T.J., p. 64, Sec. 15. Therefore,1 the lease was in effect at the time when the suit was filed and the cashier’s check tendered in court on September 26, 1950, which was within the .life of the option. Plaintiffs did not tender or offer to pay. the rent which was due when they filed the suit for specific performance, it being their *770theory that the option was accepted by the letter of May 26. They were not entitled to specific performance, unless they alleged and proved that they had performed or were willing to perform the lease contract. Since the case was tried on an erroneous theory, but the record does not disclose that appellee would not have been entitled to recover had it been tried on the right theory, it is our duty to remand the cause rather than to render judgment for appellants. Benoit v. Wilson, ex. Sup., 239 S.W.2d 792, loc.cit. 799 (8); Williams v. Safety Casualty Co., 129 Tex. 184, 102 S.W.2d 178.
Appellants’ motion for a rehearing is granted, our former judgment set aside, and the cause reversed and remanded.
Reversed and remanded.