Court Opinion

ID: 9817174
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 04:03:05.136298+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:31:27.424442
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing.
We- have carefully read the brief of counsel for plaintiffs in error on his application for rehearing, and will say that it is one of the most ingenious, able, and persuasive briefs and arguments it has ever been our pleasure to read or listen to. It is able because it has every evidence of learning, and deep and thorough study and research. It is ingenious because it presents every issue in the case by *467clear, apt, and convincing argument from counsel’s standpoint. It is persuasive because it is couched in such courteous, ethical, and pleasing language, with every evidence of highly cultured professional training. It appeals to the sympathies and pathetic nature of the person or body to whom it is addressed, rather than the real exacting precedents and fixed principles of law actually involved in this case, and all this I say in the most earnest and sincere sense. But we are reminded that this is not a question of courtesy, sympathy, or personal preference on the part of the writer of the opinion, and no doubt the same can be said of the trial judge and the jury in the case below. Counsel takes exceptions to the first part of the opinion wherein it is said the effect of the verdict is, that defendants had listed for sale a tract of land belonging to O. A. Johnson, at the minimum price of $8,300, and that they falsely and fraudulently represented to the defendant in error that they had no authority to, that they could not, and the owner would not, sell the land for less than $9,600. That statement is based on the verdict of the jury under the instruction of the court. The instruction was given by the local judge, and the verdict returned by a jury of the county, for neither of which this court is responsible. Since the filing of the motion for rehearing, we have again carefully gone over the case, and are still of the opinion that the instructions fairly submitted the law, and that there is evidence to sustain the verdict. We are also of the opinion that this case is distinguished from the first decision in the Kice Case, 53 S. W. 385, but does come within the rule laid down in the second opinion in that case (61 S. W. 266), where the court says:
“Where the purchaser of property from a broker was induced to pay more than the owner asked for the prop*468erty by the fraudulent representation of the broker that the owner w'ould not accept less than the price paid, the purchaser is entitled, in an action for deceit, to recover of the broker the excess which he pocketed, less the usual commission for making the sale.”
Counsel contends that the evidence does not show that the defendants represented to the plaintiff that the owner' of the land would not take less than $9,600 for it. We cannot agree with him in that contention. To our mind, even though the exact words were not spoken, the entire record clearly establishes that fact.
Our statutory definition of fraud is applicable here,, as found in section 908, Rev. Laws 1910, which is as follows :
“Actual fraud, within the meaning of this chapter, consists in any of the following acts, committed by a party to the contract, or with his connivance with intent to deceive another party thereto, or to induce him to enter into the. contract: First. The suggestion, as a fact, of that which is not true, by one who does not believe it to be true. * * * Third. The suppression of that which is true, by one having knowledge or belief of the fact * * * Fifth. Any other act fitted to deceive.”
The motion for rehearing should be denied.
By the Court: It is so ordered.