Court Opinion

ID: 9829018
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:55:49.834082+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:56.391327
License: Public Domain

On Appellee’s Motion for Rehearing.
We do not think that the ease of Johnson v. Ross & Heyer Co., No. 9289, by this court, not published,1 has any application to the pleadings and facts proven in this case. Ap-pellee quotes from the opinion on original hearing in that case as follows:
“Plaintiff in the second paragraph of ,his petition pleaded: ‘That on April 30, 1917, it sold one Clarendon piano, oak No. 72820, one stool and one scarf for the consideration of $350.00, on which contemporaneous with said sale, the defendant paid $10.00.’ If this allegation is sufficient, as against a general demurrer to show the value of the piano sold, upon which plaintiff sought a foreclosure by .its suit, filed in the county court on September 10, 1917, then the assignment is without merit. We conclude that the term ‘considera*478tion’ in the above sentence is a legal equivalent of the word ‘price,’ and means that the piano was sold for the price of $350.00. The word ‘price’ is not. synonymous with value, strictly speaking, but where a merchant in the ordinary course of trade, sells to a purchaser, an article of merchandise for the alleged ‘price of $350.00,’ such expression in the absence of a special exception may be termed as synonymous with the expression ‘value of $350.00.’ ”
In that case there was no statement of facts, and we found that neither appellant .nor ap-pellee, had pleaded that Ross & Heyer Company was a merchandising company. But in the instant case the appellee alleged that the Oliver H. Ross Piano Company was a corporation, ' and sold to the def endants a De Kalb grand piano, and that the defendants executed their promissory notes and gave a chattel mortgage on said piano for the payment thereof. The defendants pleaded that the Ross & Heyer Piano Company, the predecessor of plaintiff, was engaged in the sale of pianos as retail dealers in the city of Fort Worth; that one E. I. Conkling was then a salesman and agent of said company, and as such he was engaged in soliciting persons to purchase pianos handled by said company and in negotiating sales thereof, etc.
We think that the pleadings of appellants and the testimony in the record amply support the conclusion that the Oliver H. Ross Piano Company was a merchant engaged in selling pianos at retail, and as such sold the piano in question. Quoting from Johnson v. Ross & Heyer Oo., above noted: “Where a merchant in the ordinary course of trade sells to a purchaser, an article of merchandise for the alleged ‘price of $35(>.'00,’ such expression in the absence of a special exception may be termed as synonymous with the expression ‘value of $350.00.’ ”
E. I. Conkling testified that the regular price of the piano sold to the Templetons was $595 and that said piano had been selling at that price, he thought, ever since the company had been handling the same; that this was the stated retail price.
Mrs. Templeton testified that the keys to the piano stuck, and that one could not perform on the piano because of the sticking together of the keys; that the agent of the company when she bought the piano had promised to put and keep it in repair; that she was not able to use the piano in the condition it was while it was in her home.
P. Y. Templeton testified that the piano was a nice ornament in the home,-but there was no music in it.
Mrs. Raymond Jones testified that the piano was in a poor condition; that she had lived in the Templeton home some time last fall and had seen the piano in the room and found that the keys stuck every time one tried to play it and saw other people try to play on it; that the piano set in the Temple-ton home and was not opened up because nobody could play on it; that the piano never got wet or overheated while she was in the Templeton home; that the piano did not set where the sun could get to it, nor was it ever exposed to any unusual weather conditions while she was there.
Mrs. Templeton testified that the piano was practically in as good condition as when it was delivered to her.
We think there was ample pleading and evidence to make the difference in the value of the piano at the time it was sold and at the time of the trial an issue.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.

 Memorandum opinion.