Court Opinion

ID: 9830417
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:11:49.810283+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:21.883969
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
As one of the grounds relied upon to attack the contract of purchase of the land, appellee alleged that:
Black “asked the defendant to agree to sell him a one-half interest in the ranch on the basis of the same price that the defendant was contracting to buy same, and told the defendant that he wanted to form a partnership with the defendant to handle and dispose of the ranch, and wanted to own one-half of the ranch, and represented to the defendant the enormous profits that could be made out of the ranch, and by such representations and such conduct the said John R. Black succeeded in forming a partnership with the defendant to manage, run, operate, and sell the ranch, and by such representations and conduct induced the defendant not to make any other investigation, but to rely upon the statements of the said John R. Black.”
When those allegations were made appel-lee deemed the offer of partnership, which was accepted, as one of the strongest matters offered to show fraud upon the part of Binder through his agent, Black. He failed to comprehend the position in which he placed himself when he solemnly pleaded that he had made a contract with the agent of Binder, before the contract of purchase, to take him in as a partner in the land. He not only made the allegations that he had knowingly assisted the agent in acting for himself and contrary to the interests of his principal, but he did all in his power with his testimony to sustain the allegations. Appellee swore positively that he did not sign any contract until the offer of partnership was made by Black and accepted by him. Afteu making the allegations, after swearing to them and testifying in a forceful manner to uphold them, he now appears before this court and asseverates with much heat and emphasis, in many pages of his motion for rehearing, that this court in taking appellee’s allegations as true, and whether true or not, as binding on appellee, and that his evidence in support of his allegations was to be accepted rather than that of Black, is a plain invasion of the province of *246the jury. Did not the jury find that the allegations and evidence of appellee were false and that the testimony of Black should be credited? Is the court invading the sacred province of the jury in holding that appellee is bound by his admissions in both allegation and proof? That is the attitude in which appellee is placed by his intemperate motion for rehearing, in which the court is informed that it “arbitrarily set aside the findings of the jury on this very issue and substituted its own conclusions of fact for the conclusions found- by the jury.”
Appellate courts in Texas are required by law, and from education and inclination are disposed, to show great deference for verdicts of jury; but they are not inclined to uphold a verdict that is in the very face of the pleadings and evidence of a plaintiff himself, in response to his demand that his allegations and proof must be discarded and evidence of a man, alleged by him to be a swindler and defrauder, taken as true, and build a recovery thereupon. The facts, however, tend to show that appellee told the truth about the partnership between him and Black, and the only possible ground on which there is any conflict between him and Black is as to the exact time when the partnership was formed. Appellee by allegation and testimony made the partnership the chief inducement to the purchase of the land. It is not claimed in the motion for rehearing that appellee did not swear that the partnership was formed before the sale of the land was consummated, and was the chief inducement thereto; but Black, the man who misled and deceived appellee, is the sole reliance upon which the verdict is hinged. Not only this, but Black is represented as a plaintiff, although he came in as an intervener, and his allegations as to the partnership being formed after the contract was made are quoted and relied on, although each and every one of them were denied by appellee in a supplemental answer. The allegation, however, of Black, shows that a verbal agreement was made as to the partnership before the sale was perfected; his allegation being as to the written contract which was executed on May 27, 1911, just two weeks after appellant had sold the land to appellee. The written contract recites the existence of a verbal agreement of partnership in the land.
While appellee cites authority to show that the opposing party may by his evidence explain or even disprove the existence of a fact testified to by a plaintiff, and the jury might take the evidence of the defendant upon which to base a verdict for the plaintiff, he fails to cite any case that holds that the evidence of the defendant contrary to one of the main points relied upon in the petition for a recovery and supported by the deliberate careful testimony of the plaintiff can be taken in the face of such allegation and proof as a basis for a finding in favor of the plaintiff. The decisions cited refer to some isolated fact or circumstance, and not to a theory of recovery fixed by allegation and proof. Railway v. Von Hoesen, 91 S. W. 604; Railway v. Murray, 99 S. W. 144.
In the case of Connor v. Uvalde Bank, 156 S. W. 1092, the rule on the subject, as laid down by the courts of Missouri, is copied as follows:
“If it is a mere construction of phrases or expressions used by the witness in detailing his testimony as to whether the statements are favorable or unfavorable to his side of the case, then there is no necessity, nor is it error, to refuse an instruction embodying the principle in the one before us. It is simply the province of the jury, guided by the general instruction as to the credibility of witnesses and the weight to be attached to their testimony, to determine the credit of such witness and the force and effect of his testimony. If a plaintiff or defendant testifying in a cause make statements which may be construed unfavorably to them, it is the province of the jury to consider them; but, unless such statement amounts to an admission of a fact material to the issue, it is not the province of the court to assume that unfavorable statements have been made and instruct the jury on that subject.”
[9] In this case, however, the trial court could with perfect propriety have instructed the jury that it had been admitted by ap-pellee that he formed a partnership with the agent of appellant prior to the purchase of the land and that the formation of the partnership was th|e chief inducement to the purchase of the land. Appellee pleaded and proved the theory upon which he sought to recover, and he will not be permitted to recover on a theory made by the evidence of an intervener, who had conspired with him as against the principal. No case has been offered to sustain such a position, and none will be, because it is contrary to all rules of law and right applicable to the question.
There is not one word of testimony tending to show that Binder knew of the partnership between Black and appellee, but all of the testimony shows that he did not. Although it is so stated in the motion for rehearing, Black did not swear that he informed Binder about the partnership. What he said about informing Binder was before the partnership was mooted, and was in regard to an interest that Black had in the land being kept by him. In order to show that Binder knew about the transaction, evidence of Black, to the effect that at the very start of the negotiations appellee tried to get Black to defraud his principle and “stand in” with him, is cited with approval by appellee.
The defense pleaded in this case was not contemplated in the first answer, but was set up about four months after the suit had been filed, and in the third amended answer, upon which the cause was tried, there was no plea of failure of consideration, as is stated in the original opinion; but we find that a plea of failure of consideration was *247filed as a second trial amendment on April 14, 1917, about four days before the cause was submitted to the jury. The cause was submitted to the jury on the theory of damages arising fromi fraud and not on failure of consideration. The jury so understood it and stated:
“We find that defendant Millikin is entitled to recover damages as an offset in the nature of a credit on said notes, and find as such damages the sum of $125,756.52, which is the difference between the amount for which the land and personal property sold, to wit, $800,000, and the market value of such, land and personal property on May 25, 1911, etc.”
However, the plea of failure of consideration was verified by affidavit and filed as a second trial amendment, and the statement made in our former opinion to the contrary is hereby corrected. This will not alter the disposition of the cause.
Black wrote Binder on April 26th, just after the preliminary contract was closed, that appellee had taken all of the land when at that very time he had entered into the partnership and retained one-half the property and on the next day, April 27, 1911, he telegraphed appellee, at Tulsa, Old., asking him to write a letter stating that appellee would sell Black a half interest in the land. It is contended that the testimony was an innocent scheme on the part of Black to get a bonus from some one, but the fact remains that one month after that one-half the land was contracted hy appellee to Black. That contract recites the existence of the verbal agreement to convey one-half the land, and the evidence shows that the verbal agreement must have been made before appellee left San Antonio, and before the preliminary contract was signed, because just as soon as that contract was signed appellee left for Tulsa, and remained there until and after the contract of partnership with Black was signed. It is not claimed that the verbal contract was made by telephone, and consequently it • could not have been made while Black was in San Antonio and appellee was in Tulsa. There is no escape from this conclusion.
The motion for rehearing is overruled. •