Court Opinion

ID: 6906798
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-23 22:01:42.822276+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:06:22.791193
License: Public Domain

Rehearing denied October 7, 1919.
Petition for Rehearing.
(184 Pac. 280.)
BURNETT, J.
In his petition for a rehearing the defendant urges upon us the consideration of three several features of the testimony here set down:
“1. That the respondent Welch, through his attorney Charles A. Johns, on December 29, 1916, at a time when his attention was directed to the clause in question and he was informed, that the appellant would make the claim that he has made and does make in this suit, stated that ‘there is no contention over the terms and conditions in the conveyance. ’
“2. That the same attorney, Charles A. Johns, in April, 1916, in a written statement to this court in behalf of Welch corporation, the Pacific Land Company, said that Welch assumed and agreed to pay the mortgage in and by the terms of the deed.
*605“3. That the respondent, the plaintiff at the trial, produced evidence showing that the deed in question was prepared in the office of Charles A. Johns, attorney for Welch, at the time the deed was prepared.”
It will he recalled that the object of this suit was to correct an alleged mistake in a deed from the defendants Yreeland to the plaintiff Welch by striking out of the same the clause whereby Welch assumed and agreed to pay the note and mortgage held by Johnson as a lien upon the land conveyed, on the ground that it was inserted in the conveyance by the mutual mistake of the parties thereto. The testimony involved in the first specification of the petition is substantially as follows: Having foreclosed his mortgage, the attorney for the defendant Johnson, who was plaintiff in that proceeding, addressed a letter to the present plaintiff Welch at Portland, Oregon, directing his attention to the decree of foreclosure, notifying him that under the conveyance mentioned Welch was responsible for the payment of the debt evidenced by the note and secured by the mortgage, and calling upon him to pay it in full. This letter, dated December 28, 1916, was introduced in evidence. The defendant Johnson also read in evidence here a letter from Charles A. Johns, under date of December 29, 1916, addressed to the attorney for Johnson, which reads thus:
“Mr. Welch has handed me your letter to him of December 28, in which I note you claim he assumed and agreed to pay the Johnson note and mortgage, and that you are directed by Mr. Johnson to take such steps as may be necessary to collect his claim.
“There is no contention over the terms and conditions in the conveyance to Mr. Welch, but for many and different reasons he disclaims any personal liability to Johnson. Among other things, as I understand *606the facts, the note and mortgage from Eicord to Johnson was a purchase money note and mortgage. At all events, there is no disposition on the part of Mr. Welch to pay this claim or any part of it, and I think after a careful investigation you will find he is not personally liable.”
7. In this suit Johnson contends that this letter constitutes an admission binding upon Welch, to the effect that there is no mistake in the conveyance. If this construction is correct it would be fatal to the plaintiff’s suit. In Fleishman v. Meyer, 46 Or. 267, 274 (80 Pac. 209), this court had under consideration the correspondence between the defendants and a firm of attorneys who seemed to be representing the plaintiffs in advance of any litigation between them, in the matter of an alleged breach by defendants of their contract to sell personal property to the plaintiffs. Want of a pending action is a condition attending the correspondence here in question. In that case the court said, speaking by Mr. Justice Moore :
“Authority to compromise the claim, as mentioned in the exceptions noted, will be implied only in the regular course of pending suits and actions, when an attorney has neither time nor opportunity to consult with his client, whose interest would be imperiled by delay. [Citing authorities.] The weight of authority in this country supports the rule that an attorney, by virtue of a mere retainer, has no implied power to bind his client by a compromise of his claim.” [Citing still other precedents.]
If an attorney in advance of litigation cannot compromise his client’s case, much less can he admit away the client’s whole case.
There is nothing in the evidence for the defendant relating to the extent of the authority given to Johns to bind the plaintiff Welch by the letter in question. *607On the other hand, as a witness for the plaintiff in rebuttal, Johns stated:
“That letter was written without a consultation with Mr. Welch or any knowledge of the facts concerning the execution of these deeds.”
In the absence of any pending litigation in which Johns was appearing as the attorney of record for Welch, no more importance can be attached to the letter than to the declaration of anyone else who assumes to speak for another. The case is not affected by the fact that the writer was a member of the Bar. He might as well have been the plaintiff’s grocer or laundryman. It would be necessary to show that the declarations in the letter were authorized by the plaintiff and within the scope of the authority conferred upon the writer, before the writing could bind the plaintiff. How far an attorney may bind his client in compromise or renunciation of his claim, is discussed in Pomery v. Prescott, 106 Me. 401 (76 Atl. 898, 138 Am. St. Rep. 347, 21 Ann. Cas. 574, and note).
8. Much is claimed, also, for a statement made in the brief of the defendant in the case of John R. Johnson, Plaintiff, v. Pacific Land Company, Defendant, heard in this court at the March term, 1917, to the effect that the plaintiff there had sold the land here in question to Ricord, who conveyed to the Yreelands, and the latter to Welch, and that in each instance the grantees assumed and agreed to pay the mortgage. This brief was over the name of Charles A. Johns and Claude M. Johns. The action there was for the replevin of some personal property alleged to have been wrongfully removed from the mortgaged premises by the defendant there. We note that it was an incidental statement made in the brief by way of opening the argument for the defendant in that case. It was *608res inter alios actos. It is not shown even that Welch was present at the argument of the case or knew that the statement was included in the brief. At the utmost, it could bind only the parties to that litigation.
Much the same is the case of Patty v. Salem Flouring Mills Co., 53 Or. 350 (96 Pac. 1106, 98 Pac. 521, 100 Pac. 298). One question there involved was the custom of the defendant in dealing with farmers when it received wheat from them and issued receipts therefor. In the Patty case the trial court, admitted evidence of the testimony of a witness in the previous case of Savage against the same defendant respecting such a custom. The court in an exhaustive opinion by Mr. Justice Mooee held that this was error. That case is controlling upon the second specification in the defendant’s petition here.
9-11. Even if the deed in question was prepared in the office of the plaintiff’s attorney, and this is questionable under the testimony, that would not necessarily make it less a mistake to include the clause in dispute. Even attorneys are not infallible and their errors are not necessarily conclusive upon their clients. This circumstance is properly considered on the point that to be relieved from a mistake it must appear that it was not due to the party’s negligence, but, as pointed out in the former opinion, on the authority of Pomeroy, the negligence which will prevent the relief of a party from his mistake must be such as will amount to a violation of a positive duty owed to another party. Here, at the time the alleged mistake was made Johnson had already received his note and mortgage, together with the agreement of the Vreelands as grantees subsequent to Johnson to pay this same debt. In taking the conveyance from the Vreelands, Welch owed no duty whatever to Johnson. The latter was not in*609duced to surrender any right or to prejudice his situation by anything in the deed which Welch accepted. The negligence, therefore, whether of himself or of his attorney who wrote the deed, if he did write it, is not such as will prevent the correction of the mistake.
Summing up the whole matter of the evidence, we have the consensus* of statement of the parties to the conveyance that it was a mistake to include such a clause and that it was not part of the agreement out of which the deed arose. All that is opposed to this positive statement are the inferences to be drawn from the correspondence alluded to and the possible fact that the deed was drawn in the office of a member of the Bar. As a matter of law, the letter mentioned was not binding upon the plaintiff here and the inferences to be drawn from the circumstances under which the conveyance was written are not of sufficient weight to overcome the direct, uncontradicted and explicit narrative of the parties.
The petition for rehearing is denied.
AFFIRMED. REHEARING DENIED.
McBride, C. J., and BeNsoN and Harris, JJ., concur.
Mr. Justice JohNs did not participate in the consideration of the original case or of the petition for rehearing.