Court Opinion

ID: 9829773
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:36:33.933689+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:05.996261
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION EOR REHEARING.
Appellants insist that in holding that they pleaded a mutual mistake of the parties in drafting the contract, we misconstrued their pleading, and in their motion for rehearing they. say: “We respectfully submit that no such plea appears in defendants’ answer” . . Such was our construction of the defendants’ answer, and evidently the trial court gave it the same interpretation as indicated in his charge to the jury.
But the contention is made that we erred further in holding that the contract was not an option contract. More than that, appellants insist that the evidence conclusively shows an understanding by and between the parties that time was of the essence of the contract, and that, as plaintiffs did not tender performance within the sixty days period fixed by the contract they could not- recover. In their motion for rehearing, appellants say, in substance, that the contemporaneous agreements and stipulations between the parties at the time of the execution of the contract, showed that Collier had agreed to furnish plaintiffs an abstract of title to the property, in time for plaintiffs to examine the same and comply with their agreements as shown in the contract, but that defendants were not to furnish the same until appellee, Eobinson, had notified Collier of his intention to take the property. If there was no plea of mutual mistake in the contract as written, then in construing it we must be governed solely by its terms. When so construed, clearly it is not an option contract, for, in express terms, it bound defendants to sell and plaintiffs to purchase the property. Moss & Raley v. Wren, 102 Texas, 567, and authorities there cited.
The verdict of the jury, construed in the light of the charge, indicates a finding that defendants were guilty of negligence in failing to furnish within the sixty days’ period named in the contract, speh an abstract of title as they had agreed to furnish, that they had ample time so to do after demand therefor from plaintiffs, and that such delay on the part of the defendants was the occasion of plaintiffs’ delay in tendering performance; and the evidence shown in the record was sufficient to support such findings. Even though it should be held that time was of the essence of the contract, as appellants contend, they cannot complain of the failure of plaintiffs to tender performance of their obligations within the time therein specified, if such failure of plaintiffs was caused by defendants’ own negligence, *168as found by the jury. Mc.Lane v. Elder, 23 S. W., 758; Wright v. Meyer, 25 S. W., 1122; Wilkens v. Wilkerson, 41 S. W., 179.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.

Affirmed.

Writ of error refused.