Court Opinion

ID: 9833936
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:10:13.701137+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:09.550282
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
While still unable to accept his view of the case, in deference to the motion of able coun*986sel for appellant, this additional statement is made upon reconsideration.
The cause having been tried by the court without a jury, a general judgment in appellee’s favor rendered, and no findings of fact or conclusions of law being filed below, the rule upon appeal is:
“Every presumption not inconsistent with the record will be indulged in favor of the judgment, and any doubts as- to the facts raised by the evidence and any view of the law which the trial court could have applied under the pleadings and evidence in the case will be resolved in support of the judgment.” Byers v. Thacker, 42 Tex. Civ. App. 492, 94 S. W. 138; Campbell v. Teeple (Tex. Civ. App.) 273 S. W. 304; Cisco & N. E. Ry. Co. v. Texas Pipe Line Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 240 S. W. 900; Diltz v. Dodson (Tex. Civ. App.) 207 S. W. 356; First State Bank of Amarillo v. Jones (Tex. Civ. App.) 171 S. W. 1057; Hines v. Kansas City Life Ins. Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 260 S. W. 690; King v. Pond (Tex. Civ. App.) 283 S. W. 607; Robertson v. Lee (Tex. Civ. App.) 230 S. W. 730.
After again contending that appellee’s amended petition sought recovery on a quantum meruit basis, while his original one declared upon a breach of contract, appellant’s position further asserts now, as it likewise did on original hearing, that the evidence shows: (1) That appellee unconditionally undertook to furnish a completed artesian well, and, through his own fault, failed; (2) that he accepted the secondhand pipe furnished him as suitable, without protest or objection at the time; (3) that he was negligent in leaving the pipe standing in the hole from Saturday afternoon till the following Monday morning, and, on then finding it stuck, in violently operating his rotary in an effort to release it.
We must adhere to our former conclusion that the suit was at no time based on a quantum meruit; in both the original and amended petitions a breach of the contract by appellant was declared upon, in that he had failed to furnish the suitable pipe he obligated himself for, thereby preventing the appel-lee from carrying it out on his part, and the damages so caused were asked for.
The gist of the action at all times was this breach and interference upon appellant’s side; the principle thus declared in Hahl v. Deutsch, 42 Tex. Civ. App. 1, 94 S. W. at page 446, cited in our former opinion, is directly applicable, the underscoring being our own:
“The thirteenth and fourteenth assignments present the contention that the judgment ought not to stand because the evidence shows that plaintiff did not complete the well according to the contract under which he claims. The effective answer to these assignments is that the respects in which he failed were due to the hv-terference of defendant and his failure to supply:• material which he had obligated himself to supply. This being true and plaintiff having in fact reamed out the well and put in the casing either according to the terms of the modified' contract or else according to defendant’s dictation, he is perhaps entitled to the full contract price per foot for the entire depth, but the court found for him only the 250 feet actually cased with 8-inch 'casing and allowed him $2.25 per foot therefor, which the court found was the contract price. As his compensation was rated by the foot in the contract, we do not think the plaintiff loould be relegated to his quantum meruit, but might recover ratably the contract price for the footage actually completed; he having been prevented from completing the well by the acts and interference of defendant. On this theory the judgment is supported by the evidence.”
Mitchell v. Boyce (Tex. Civ. App.) 120 S. W. 1016, is in effect to the same purport, because in this instance all that appellee asked of appellant was to perform his part of the contract in iurnishing the material, offering to continue the work without any other or further cost to the latter.
Under the quoted rule applicable here, not only does the view of the law applied by these authorities clearly justify this recovery,'but the pleadings and evidence do likewise ; every one of these assertions as to the facts must be resolved the other way. In other words, there was evidence that appellee (1) only undertook to drill the wells in reliance upon appellant’s reciprocal obligation to furnish him secondhand pipe reasonably suitable for the purpose, which he did not do,‘thereby preventing his own completion of the wells; (2) that he did not accept the pipe as suitable, but objected to it at the time, and only used it under protest; (3) that he was neither negligent in pulling up off the bottom and leaving the pipe standing in the hole from Saturday afternoon till Monday morning— that being the usual and customary practice-in handling such wells—nor in the manner of rotating his machinery thereafter in efforts to release the pipe.
The trial court must therefore be deemed to-have found accordingly.
These conclusions require the overruling of the motion; it has been so ordered.
Overruled.