Court Opinion

ID: 9833293
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:35:39.501011+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:01.317026
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[2] Upon a reconsideration of the entire testimony in this case, we conclude that the verdict of the jury rests upon such unsatisfactory and highly improbable testimony that we should exercise the right of reversing the judgment and remanding the cause for another trial. The possession of the evidence of the indebtedness raises a presumption of payment, which presumption, unre-butted, would support a verdict. That presumption, if not disproved, would be sufficient to satisfy the burden imposed by law on the debtor to prove payment. It is not such a presumption as would justify a charge that the burden was on plaintiff to show nonpayment, and we did not hold that it was. In this case the explanation is made that the piano contract was attached to a victrola contract, and that it could not have come into possession of appellee, except by some mistake, which probably consisted in that, when the victrola debt was paid in full, the piano contract was not detached, but was sent to appellee with the victrola contract. This theory is supported by many facts.
There is no testimony or evidence tending to show that the victrola contract was not inclosed in the letter of October 2, 1913. That letter states that the victrola contract was duly canceled. The piano contract contains indorsements showing each payment made up to October 2, 1913. Each payment consisted of $18 and interest, except one, which was for $36. The piano contract contains no indorsement that it is canceled, or that it is paid in full, or any kind of indorse*874ment of payment made subsequent to the date when the balance due on the victrola was paid. A copy of the piano contract was duly registered in Bexar county as a chattel mortgage, and a release would be proper, and would naturally be desired by appellee, if full payment had been made. No demand was ever made by appellee for any release or receipt showing full payment, and when it was discovered, in going through the ledger, that there was apparently a balance due on the piano account, and letters written him asking for further payments, he failed to claim that he had made payment,'and did not answer the letters.
[3] .The foregoing facts and circumstances destroy any presumption of payment arising from the mere possession 'of the contract, Appellee’s testimony tending to show payment is very unsatisfactory. It appears that at a previous trial he testified he sent his personal check in payment of the balance, blit afterwards ascertained that he did not have that much money in the bank, and recollected that he sent to. appellant by mail a check for $150, given by a patient of the Terrell Medical & Surgical Institute, which was operated by a corporation in which ap-pellee was a stockholder and manager, and the remainder, $14.35, in money. 1-Ie was unable to recollect who gave the check, or on what bank it was drawn. Appellee’s recollection, admitted to be so faulty, may also be faulty as to whether the remittance of which he had such a vague recollection was in fact made to appellant, or to some other creditor; but, aside from that, 'there is no evidence that appellant ever received the remittance of check and money claimed to have been sent, unless it be deduced from the fact that appellee had possession of the contract. In view of the facts of this case, we do not believe that such possession can be considered as satisfactory evidence of the receipt of the remittance claimed to have been sent.
The motion for rehearing is granted, and our former Judgment set aside, the Judgment of the trial court is reversed, and the cause remanded.