Court Opinion

ID: 9864552
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 13:54:50.916466+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:17:47.392904
License: Public Domain

THE COURT.
On petition for rehearing. Petitioners are in error in their suggestion that this court held that at the date of the contract of August 16, 1921, B. M. Martin was not the owner of any stock in defendant corporation. *464Implicitly it was admitted by the pleadings that Martin remained the owner of one share; in other words, Martin had owned 9,998 shares and had reserved one share from his pledge to Childress. The testimony of Martin confirms this fact.
The fact that the vendors at the time of making their contract with defendant corporation did not own the land, but had only those rights referred to in the decision herein, has not that supreme importance which has been insisted upon by appellants.  Where a vendee contracts with one having none or an imperfect title, he contracts in the hope or expectation that the vendor may be able to perfect the title. (Brimmer v. Salisbury, 167 Cal. 522, 531 [140 Pac. 30]; Kerr v. Reed, 39 Cal. App. 11, 16 [179 Pac. 399].) In the absence of fraud or misrepresentation of any kind, such imperfection of title does not destroy the validity of the contract.  Of course, it is true that on an installment contract, when the time arrives for making the final payment of consideration, the vendor must be prepared to convey a sufficient title. But under such a contract the vendor’s right to compel payment of intermediate installments of the purchase price does not depend upon the present existence of a complete title in the vendor.
While the assignments of error made by appellant in relation to instructions to the jury were not discussed in the opinion of the court, the court did not fail to give to them what we deemed to be sufficient consideration. If there were any errors in said instructions, we are of the opinion that such errors were of minor importance in relation to the case and did not probably affect the verdict.
The petition for rehearing is denied.
York, J., absent.
A petition by appellants to have the cause heard in the supreme court, after judgment in the district court of appeal, was denied by the supreme court on October 4, 1928.
All the Justices present concurred.