Court Opinion

ID: 9834050
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:15:47.580041+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:11.248579
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellee, in his motion for a rehearing, attacks the conclusions upon which this case was disposed of upon several grounds. He asserts that the testimony is such that the jury might have found that the 50-acre tract of land situated 2% or 3 miles from Pieton was a part of the homestead of Welch. He asserts that Welch did not testify that he lived in Pieton, but lived at Pieton. Assuming that there is an essential legal distinction, when applied to the facts pf this case, between the words “in” and “at,” we quote as follows from the testimony of Welch on cross-examination :
“Yes;. I made these notes July 3, 1919. At that time I owned a dwelling lot in Pieton. If I didn’t live on it at the time, I lived on it right soon afterwards. I moved my house on that along that year. I think my house was on it at that time. I would, say I was living on it at that time.”
• That, we think, sufficiently answers the argument upon the homestead issue.
Appellee also insists that this court had no right to disregard the findings of the jury and render a judgment for the appellant, because that could not have been done by the trial court.
The ease was submitted on special issues. The first question required the jury to answer whether or not the 50-acre tract was the homestead of Welch. In reply to that the jury found that it was. The state of the evidence was such, we think, that upon the application made by the appellant in its motion for a new trial the court should have set that finding aside as unsupported by the evidence.
The answers to questions 2, 3, and 4 might have been disregarded by the court as of no legal importance upon the controlling issues, or at least as not requiring a judgment in favor of Welch. The answer to question 5 was favorable to the appellant.
It is further contended that under the findings of the jury and the testimony of Welch the notes did not evidence- a valid and enforceable contract, and because of that fact they could not, under any subsequent dealings, have become vitalized so as to become enforceable. If that proposition be true, then all sham sales which are made by the owners of property in order to get into circulation vendor’s lien notes would be unenforceable solely because they were void as between the original parties and others with notice. Repeated decisions of our courts hold that such notes, when passed into the hands of innocent purchasers or holders for value, may be enforced. Our holding in this case is that, however invalid the notes may have been in the hands of Welch or the Pieton bank, they were valid and enforceable when taken over by the Atlanta bank at the instance of Welch as security for money advanced to take up his indebtedness to the Pieton bank. Any other rule of law would result in a miscarriage of justice.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.