Court Opinion

ID: 9444669
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:08:24.179526+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:57.549470
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing
TUTTLE, Circuit Judge.
Wolters Village Management Company has filed a petition for rehearing assigning the following grounds:
“1. The Court of Appeals erred in holding that the adjudication that Graybar Electric Company, Inc. was entitled to $2,732.64 of the money paid into Court was not appealed from for the reason that this Appellant appealed from the entire judgment, and since Graybar Electric Company, Inc. failed to comply with the Texas mechanics’ and materialmen’s lien laws and failed to establish its debt against this Appellant and failed to affix its lien, Gray-bar Electric Company, Inc. is not entitled to take a part of the fund deposited into the Registry of the Court.
“2. The Court of Appeals erred in holding that Merchants and Planters National Bank did not waive its rights under the contract by not notifying Wolters Village Management Company that Wolters Village Management Company had failed to make the checks out jointly to it and the subcontractor, and for the further reason that they [sic] failed to apply all of the proceeds of the checks that it received upon the indebtedness of Central Electric Company to the bank.”
The second ground has been fully considered in our original opinion and requires no further discussion.
As for the first ground, we are of the same persuasion as before, although we did not express it as well as we might have in our opinion, namely, that petitioner did not specify any error which controverted the propriety of the court’s allowance of the $2,732.64 to Graybar. *803Petitioner’s original brief contains in this regard only the following specification of error:
“9. The trial court erred in its judgment dividing the funds deposited in the registry of the court under the interpleader action between the bank and Graybar Electric Company, Inc. when the court found that the fund deposited should be divided between Electric Company and Graybar Electric Company, Inc.”
The meaning of this statement is rather enigmatic on its face, and the brief does not argue or explain the point; however, it is clear from the record what petitioner was driving at, and that the specification does not raise any issue relating to the validity of Graybar’s claims or to the propriety of its sharing in the distribution of the deposited funds.1
In petitioner’s supplemental brief submitted after oral argument, one short paragraph is devoted to the rights of Graybar under the Mechanic’s Lien Statute, asserting that: “Neither Graybar nor Barnard followed the statute * * However, the recovery allowed to Graybar below was not posited on the validity of its lien, but on its claim as assignee of Central Electric Company.2 This was erroneous, for as we pointed out in our opinion, Gray-bar’s assignment was subject to the defense of setoff which had arisen against the assignor before the assignment was made.
The statement in our opinion that “The singular adjudication that Graybar was entitled to $2,732.64 of the money paid into court was not appealed from”, was not precisely correct, for Wolters appealed from the entire judgment. But, as we should have said, Wolters did not specify the error committed by the trial court in this regard, which was allowing Graybar to recover this amount by virtue of its assignment; and our Rule 24, subd. 2(b) provides that “Errors not specified * * * will be disregarded * * This is the reason we declined to set aside that part of the judgment in the first instance. However, the same Rule also provides, “the court, at its option, may notice a plain error not specified.” On further consideration of the matter, it seems to us that allowing Graybar to recover any of the interpleaded funds was so plainly erroneous that we should notice it even though petitioner may never have specified the error properly. Accordingly, the final paragraph of our original opinion is modified to read:
“Consequently, except as to the amount of the Bank’s recovery from Wolters, the denial of recovery over of that amount from Central, Moody, and Falck, and the division of the deposited funds instead of ordering them all to be paid over to the Bank, the judgment is affirmed. As to those matters only, the judgment is reversed and the case re*804manded for further proceedings to ascertain the loss caused by Wolters’ breach of contract, and entry of judgment in accordance with the principles herein expressed.”
The opinion having been so modified, the petition for rehearing is denied.

. In its oral findings of fact, tlie court below said:
“I find that an interpleader in the amount of $8,744.00 has been filed, and that that amount should be properly divided, under the testimony, between the Electric Company and the Graybar Electric Company.” But the judgment provided: “ * * * that the sum of $8,774.58 tendered into Court by the defendant, Wolters Village Management Company, be divided between Graybar Electric Company, Inc., and plaintiff, The Merchants and Planters National Bank of Sherman * * It is clear that Specification 9 related only to the lapsus linguae — or the confusion between Central and the Bank — in the findings of fact, and that it did not attack the validity of the adjudication that Graybar was entitled to recover $2,-732.64 of the funds paid into court. We note in passing that the court misstated the exact amount of the fund besides.

. With respect to the division of the funds deposited, the court below said in its findings of fact:
“I find that there is no mechanic’s lien that interferes with this equitable course of these funds.” Graybar’s purported mechanic’s lien being in the amount of $8,700, it is clear that the court considered it entitled to recover a share of the deposited funds by virtue of its assignment, not its asserted Hen.