Court Opinion

ID: 9831477
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:08:06.043608+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:35.240454
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
, Appellants point out an inaccuracy in our original opinion which we desire to correct In one or more places we stated that Mrs. Richmond read the lease under consideration. In this we were in error. Her testimony on the point was:
*572“He [meaning McEntire] didn’t read it [meaning said oil and gas lease contract] to me, nor I didn’t read it myself.”
While this statement of Mrs. Richmond, is not specifically contradicted by the testimony of any other witness, at least two of the other witnesses, B. J. Johnson and J. B. McEntire, testified that the lease was read to Mrs. Richmond, which, if found to be true, as must be implied in aid of the judgment, was fully as effective in apprising Mrs. Richmond of the contents of the lease as if she had read it herself, and there is no contention that if the lease was read to Mrs. Richmond, as these witnesses testify, that it was misread to her. We therefore conclude that the inaccuracy noted is immaterial.
A determined assault is also made upon our disposition of appellants’ sixth assignment of error,- complaining of the court’s refusal to permit appellants to lay a predicate for the impeachment of McEntire by the testimony of Dr. Morehead, who, it is alleged, would have testified to certain declarations of McEntire tending to show that he (Mc-Entire) was interestedi in the leases taken during the time that the one in question was secured. The bill of exception shows, substantially, that this effort was after both appellants and appellees had closed their testimony in chief, and that to the effort of appellants to. recall McEntire for the purpose of impeachment objection on this ground, among others, was made and sustained by the court. We think appellees in their brief satisfactorily dispose of this assignment, to which we will add, as stated by Mr. Green-leaf, vol. 1, § 447, that:
“The general course of the examination of witnesses is subject to the discretion of the judge, it is not easy to establish a rule, which shall do more than guide, without imperatively controlling the exercise of that discretion.”
And in a note to the text in the case of Wallace v. Taunton Street Railway, 119 Mass: 91, it is said:
“The discretion is not subject to review, unless it is shown to have been grossly and oppressively abused.”
If, as is perhaps deducible from some of the contentions made under this assignment, the effort was made to introduce through Dr. Morehead the declarations of McEntire that he was interested, we think it must be said, among other things, that the evidence was but cumulative,, inasmuch as declarations of like import by McEntire were introduced in the testimony of two other witnesses, and cases must be rarey if any, where the rejection of mere cumulative evidence constitutes such an error as to require the reversal of a judgment.
Appellants also insist that the finding of the jury to the effect that Johnson and McEntire represented that the instrument under consideration was a lease, but not a conveyance, and that the appellants relied thereon, amounts, regardless of whether it is actionable or not, to such fraud as authorized Mrs. Richmond to attack the certificate of the notary public, notwithstanding the finding that Johnson was 'without knowledge that it had been improperly taken. We can but think that we properly disposed of this proposition in our original opinion, to which we may add that fraud, of itself, is not a fact; it is but a conclusion to be drawn from facts, and includes, as essential elements, an intent, actual or implied, to deceive, and a loss or injury to the person deceived. There is no finding that the representations were made with any intent to deceive, or that loss or injury to appellants resulted. On the contrary, there is evidence tending to conclusions the reverse of those, and we must therefore in support of the judgment, imply findings by the court to the effect that the representations were not false, or, if so, that they arose out of an innocent mistake as to the legal effect of the instrument, and resulted in no injury. We have been unable to find any case or authority to the effect that any such set of circumstances may be classed as a fraud cognizable by a court of equity in adjusting conflicting claims of litigants.
We deem it unnecessary ,to add to what has been stated in our original opinion on other subjects, and conclude that the motion for rehearing should be overruled.