Court Opinion

ID: 6545748
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-19 22:19:25.372081+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:55:57.740804
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING.. McCulloch, J. We are asked to grant a rehearing and affirm the decree on two grounds: First, that the answer does not put in issue the question of Powers’ total intoxication; and, second, that, a state of partial intoxication being established by the evidence, gross excessiveness of price paid for the timber is sufficient to avoid the contract of sale. On the first-named proposition, it is sufficient to say that the plaintiff accepted the answer as tendering an issue as to the degree of Powers’ intoxication, and proceeded to introduce proof on the subject. It is true that the answer contained no express denial of the allegation in the complaint that Powers was totally intoxicated and wholly incapacitated from making a contract; but', unless that allegation be treated as denied, no defense at all was tendered by the answer. The plaintiff treated that issue as properly tendered, tried the case on that theory without objection to the sufficiency of the answer, and can not now be heard to say that the answer tendered no defense. It is contended that the grossly excessive price which Powers agreed to pay for the timber was sufficient to avoid the contract and justify the chancery court in setting it aside. Continuing the quotation from Story in the section referred to in the original opinion, it is said: “For, in general, courts of equity, as a matter of public policy, do not incline on the one hand to lend their assistance to a person who has obtained an agreement or deed from another in a state of intoxication; and, on the other hand, they are equally unwilling to assist the intoxicated party to get rid of his agreement or deed merely on the ground of his intoxication at the time. They will leave the parties to their ordinary remedies at law, unless there "is some fraudulent contrivance or some imposition practised.” 1 Story, Eq. Jur. § 231. . The rule deducible from this statement, and from all the authorities, is that the contract of a person partially intoxicated at the time will not be set aside because of his intoxication. That condition results from his own act, and entitles him to no consideration whatever in either a court of law or of equity. It is not because of his intoxication that courts will annul the contract, but because of some fraud or imposition perpetrated by the person who takes advantage of his condition to make a contract with him. The courts merely grant relief from the fraud or imposition perpetrated. Therefore, while the inadequacy or excessiveness of the consideration for the contract may be a circumstance tending to establish the perpetration of a fraud, it does not, of itself, when good faith is affirmatively shown, constitute such a fraud or imposition as will afford grounds for setting aside a contract. Birdsong v. Birdsong, 2 Head (Tenn.), 290. This view, it is argued, puts a partially intoxicated person upon precisely the same plane as a perfectly sober man, with reference to his right to avoid a contract. Not so. One who deals with a sober man upon equal footing owes him only the duty not to mislead him to his prejudice by a material false representation concerning the subject-matter, or by a failure to disclose a material fact within his knowledge which the circumstances may make it his duty to disclose, whereas one who deals with a person whom he knows to be partially intoxicated owes him the duty not to take advantage of his condition by knowingly imposing a harsh contract upon him. In either case equity will give relief from a contract induced by material false representations which were relied upon, or by failure to disclose material facts when peculiar circumstances existed which called for such disclosure; but only in the case of the drunken man will knowledge of the drunkenness, coupled with knowledge of the harshness or improvidence of the contract, be deemed such a fraud or imposition as affords ground for relief. Rehearing denied. Wood and Riddick, JJ., dissent.