Court Opinion

ID: 9827223
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:18:11.166647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:26.942080
License: Public Domain

On Motion .for Rehearing.
Appellee insists in the motion that the evidence is sufficient to support the findings of the trial court as to the values of the goods converted, and as to the fact of the conspiracy as to all three of the appellants to convert the properties, and then their actual conversion.
We have again reviewed the evidence, in, the light of appellee’s motion, but again reach the conclusion that the evidence is insufficient to show the conspiracy charged, and for that reason insufficient to sustain the judgment rendered agaipst Mrs. Bethel and Mullins. We fully recognize the difficulty of proving a conspiracy to commit a crime or do any unlawful act. But, because difficult of proof, appellee is not relieved of the burden 0⅜ showing such facts from which the conspiracy may be inferred.
The date of a conspiracy ought to be fixed with some degree of certainty as acts or declarations made prior to the formation of the conspiracy, or after the accomplishment of its object are inadmissible, unless so closely connected with the accomplishment of the object as to form a part of the res gestea. We have found nothing in the evidence nor in the findings of the court as to the time when a conspiracy was formed, if any was formed, so as to determine whether the acts and things thereafter done by each were in execution or furtherance of the common purpose to convert the property or money of appellee.
In the fifth finding the court finds that Mullins and Mrs. Bethel, under their eon-*496tract of employment of January, 1920, contracted and agreed and were in duty bound to account to plaintiff for all of said property and funds, etc., but we find nowhere in the record that such was their duty under their employment. The record shows only that Mullins was the bookkeeper, and that Mrs. Bethel was “field agent.” The court in the fourth finding finds that Hoad engaged in business for himself and Mullins and Mrs. Bethel in entering into the contract to furnish the necessary tools, labor, etc., to drill the Harkrider well, but there is absolutely no evidence of such fact except as to Hoad. If Mullins and Mrs. Bethel were charged with the duty of looking after the properties oi appellee, and by reason of such employment had knowledge of such uses made of appellee’s properties by Hoad, and failed to inform appellee of the uses made of its properties, such failure might be taken as a circumstance in determining that they had some interest in the Harkrider well, or had some interest in withholding such information from their employer, but in the absence, as it seems to us, of any evidence as to their duties under their employment, or even knowledge of the uses then being made by Hoad of said properties, we think the court’s findings are without any evidence to support them as to Mullins and Mrs. Bethel. The same might be said as to the sixth, seventh, and other findings of the court. We find no evidence in the record to sustain them. As to Mullins and Mrs. Bethel, they are but legal conclusions, based on the inference that a conspiracy had been formed to convert the properties of appellee.
What we have said as to the insufficiency of the evidence to sustain the judgment applies solely to Mullins and Mrs. Bethel.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.