Court Opinion

ID: 9829844
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:40:54.122384+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:07.688079
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellants insist in their motion for a rehearing that the judgment affirming this case should be set aside because the evidence conclusively shows that the debt upon which the suit was founded had been paid. After further investigation, we have concluded that there is merit in the motion. The land involved was conveyed on December 15, 1910. Four purchase-money notes were executed by Gray, each for the sum of $362, aggregating $1,448. They bore interest at the rate of 10 per cent, per annum from date. The jury found, in response to special issues, that the land had been sold by the acre, and there was a shortage of 23 acres. That shortage, multiplied by the price, $8 per acre, amounted to $184, which should be subtracted from the aggregate amount of the purchase-money notes, leaving $1,264, the net amount of the purchase money to be paid.- The interest on this sum from date of notes to December 15, 1918, amounts to the sum of $1,011.20. This added to the principal makes an aggregate of $2,275.25 due on the 15th day of December, 1918, in the absence of any payments. In the settlement between the parties the evidence showed that the first note had been surrendered to Gray. It was offered in evidence on the trial and showed payments aggregating $1,388.06, the last being on December 7, 1918. The interest on those payments, computed from the time each was made to December 15, 1918, amounted to $405.10. These figures may not be exactly correct, but are approximately so. That sum added to the payments credited on the first note amounted to $1,793.16. Subtracting the total amount of the credits, including the interest on the payments, from the aggregate amount of the principal and interest due on notes on December 15, 1918, we have a balance of $482.04 still due.
The testimony showed that the settlement with the Grays occurred in December, 1921. Adding the interest on $482.04 for three years, from D'ecember 15, 1918, to date of settlement in December, 1921, we have $626.64. That shows that instead of owing $1,200 as claimed in the settlement, the Grays owed1 only $626.64. Gray and his wife testified to other sums paid, evidenced by receipts in the handwriting of Mrs. Adams, but unsigned, showing payments of something over $700 in addition to those indorsed upon the first note. There was nothing in the testimony offered by the appellee to dispute the correctness of those receipts. If the credits which the trial court could not ignore are supplemented with those about which there is no dispute, the indebtedness was entirely extinguished at the time of the settlement in December, 1921. It is true the court and the jury might discredit the testimony of Gray and wife as to other payments, but they could not disregard those credited on the note.
The appellee pleads, however, that the appellants are estopped to claim that the indebtedness was paid. The estoppel is based upon the settlement made in December, 1921, and the admission of Gray and his wife there made that the sum of $1,200 was still due. If the appellee were a stranger to that settlement, or had been induced to purchase the notes without any knowledge of the conditions under which the settlement was made, a plea of estoppel might be available. But the evidence shows that Gray and his wife were ignorant negroes and were unable to read and write, and that they trusted entirely to the appellee and her brothers to make the settlement and- ascertain what, if anything, was due. Whilg the appellee did not make the calculations, her agents and representatives did, and she was present as an interested party. It is true witnesses for appellee stated that they gave Gray credit for all of the receipts he produced, but the evidence now conclusively shows that they did not give him credit for all the money he *498liad paid. The mistake was that of the ap-pellee and the others jointly interested, and for that reason we do not think the plea of estoppel is available.
We do not feel inclined to reverse and render judgment in this case, but will reverse and remand in order that it may be more fully developed upon another trial.