Court Opinion

ID: 9832028
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:33:37.166926+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:41.271746
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[2] In deference to the very earnest and skillful presentation of the motion for re*81hearing, we have again examined the record with great care but find no reason to alter our former conclusion. Appellee’s petitions as a whole do not present a case of nonacceptance of the subscription contract sued upon on the part of the appellant insurance company. On the contrary, in the original anid supplemental petitions are reiterated averments that such contract was accepted, nor is such acceptance specially denied in the answers of appellants. There were general denials by all of them, but each presented special pleas based upon the theory that the insurance company after its organization “accepted, approved, ratified, and adopted” the contract. The insurance company answered that, after the corporation had been organized, “it offered to accept the subscription contract of said M. H. Compere, plaintiff, and to issue to plaintiff the stock subscription by the said Compere and to loan to plaintiff the sum of $2,500 upon the terms and conditions stipulated in the subscription contract.” Again: “That the defendant (the insurance company) has at all times been willing and anxious to make the loan to the said Compere Bros., and is still willing to do so and now offers, if the said Compere Bros, still desire to carry out the contract and take the stock for which they subscribed, to loan to the said Compere Bros, the sum of $5,000 for the period of five years, with interest at the rate of 6 per cent, per annum, provided the said Compere Bros, .will secure the same by mortgage upon real estate which is acceptable to the finance committee and to which they have good titles,” etc. It is true that appellee in his supplemental petition has an averment to the effect that, if he be mistaken as to the fact alleged that the insurance company had accepted the contract, then he prays in the alternative for a judgment against Stuart, Walker & Co., but we do not think that such aver-ments, in the light of the petition as a whole, can support the issue submitted in the court’s charge. It is certainly clear that nothing in any of the pleadings raises the issue of a pretended, simulated, or bad-faith acceptance on the part of the insurance company, and when we refer to the statement of facts we find the matter yet more clear, if possible.
But three witnesses testified:
R. T. Stuart testified that after the organization of the insurance company he became its president and said: “When the American Home life Insurance Company was organized, those contracts were turned over to the- company and accepted by them, I suppose; they were all turned over to the company. I suppose this particular contract was accepted by the company.” Here Judge Bell for the company “admitted that the particular contract was accepted by the company.” Again he testifies: “The company received, as far as I know, this particular stock subscription of Compere, and it received the benefit of the promotion and organization of the company toy Stuart, Walker & Co. * * * The Home Life Insurance Company to my knowledge never repudiated at any time any of the actions of the agent; anything that was done by the promoters in the work of the organization, selling of stock, and the advertising; no objections that I know of.”
T. B. Yarborough, who testified that he was a vice president of the First National Bank and was elected treasurer of the Home Life Insurance Company when it was organized on the 3d of May, 1909: “I guess we accepted the contracts of Stuart, Walker & Co. in the condition they were in at the time the company was organized. There was never any objection to them that I know of. The company undertook to carry out those contracts according to the terms of them. * * * At the time this application blank here (the stock subscription sued upon) was turned over to the company, I took it for granted that we were to collect the $1,250, the balance due the Home Life Insurance Company under the subscription; we would have to comply with this contract before we collected that $1,250; we would have to make a loan of $2,500. * * * I knew there was stock on which he (Compere) had already paid $250; I knew that the subscription blank says he paid Stuart, Walker & Co. and agreed that that was organization expenses. * * * These different subscriptions have been turned over to me, as treasurer of the company, for the purpose of being collected. I know the plaintiff in this ease and on the 6th of May notified him to 'pay up his subscription. * . * * Up to the time that the property was found to be a homestead, I had agreed to make them a loan of $5,000 at 6 per cent. The only thing that was in the way at that time was the title; the fact that it was a homestead. The company has been ready, provided the title to the property was pronounced satisfactory to make the loan from that time to this. We offered to do so in our pleadings. I have been treasurer of the Home Life Insurance Company since its organization.”
The remaining testimony is that of the appellee M. H. Compere and numerous letters passing between the appellee and Mr. Yar-borough extending from May 6, 1909, to November 3, 1909, none of which tends to raise the issue of a failure on the part of the insurance company to accept the subscription contract sued upon. The entire burden of the correspondence was with reference to the loan; it appearing that the property first offered as security was claimed to be a homestead by Mr. Yarborough, and there being long delays relating to other property offered as security, until finally on November 3d the appellee wrote demanding *82a.return of the amount paid on his subscription contract declining to further prosecute his efforts to secure the loan. It may be that the evidence would support the conclusion that the insurance company, after its acceptance of the subscription contract in question, did not in good faith attempt to make the loan as therein provided, but that issue and the legal consequences that would follow its determination in appellee’s favor was not presented in the court’s charge. The recovery was upon no such theory, so that we can but reiterate our former conclusion that the court erred in submitting “an issue not made by either the pleading or evidence,” as appellant assigned.
The motion for rehearing is accordingly overruled.