Court Opinion

ID: 9630039
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:58:08.75165+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:30.047801
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I concur in the reversal of the judgment in the first action (L. A. Superior Court, No. 597248), but I disagree with the views expressed by the majority with respect to the second action (L. A. Superior Court, No. 597249). In the latter action the majority reverses the judgment of the trial court and directs judgment for plaintiff on the ground that the evidence shows without conflict that the buyers under the contracts did not make the down payment and hence the warranty that the down payment had been received by the seller was breached and the assignment became one with recourse. To reach that conclusion the majority relies on the testimony of the buyers that they made no down payment—that the seller’s salesman made them for them. It is true the buyers’ testimony was uncontradieted by other testimony but there is other evidence that the buyers made the down payments. The contracts, signed by the buyers and seller, state that the down payment had been made by the buyers. The seller’s books show that the payments were made and it may be inferred that they were made by the buyers for the reason that the buyers were the ones who were to make them. This evidence is amplified by the presumptions that “private transactions have been fair and regular”; “that the ordinary course of business has been followed”; and that things have happened according to the ordinary course of nature and the ordinary habits of life. (Code Civ. Proc., § 1963, subds. 19, 20, 28.) Moreover, there is sufficient from the foregoing for the trial court to have disbelieved the buyers’ testimony. There is, therefore, a substantial conflict in the evidence and the finding of the trial court should not be upset nor should this court decide that factual issue as a matter of law by directing the entry of judgments.
In addition to the foregoing, plaintiff’s assignee’s complaint contains the allegation that “By the terms and conditions of said contract, it was provided that the balance to be paid thereon was the sum of $757.62 after deducting a *574cash payment of $111.03 made by said” buyers. This is clearly susceptible of the construction that plaintiff admitted the buyers made the down payment.
For the foregoing reasons I would affirm the judgment for defendant in the second action.