Hamilton v. McEwen
Hamilton v. McEwen
Opinion of the Court
This action arose in a justice’s court wherein James McEwen was sued on an account amounting to $16.80 for groceries alleged to have been furnished the family of the defendant. Plaintiff obtained judgment for $12.80 in the justice’s court, after a change of venue, but upon appeal to the circuit court, the court, sitting without a jury, heard the evidence and rendered judgment in favor of the defendant.
II. The'other assignments are that the judgment is erroneous because against the law, and against the evidence, and because under the law and the evidence, the judgment should have been for the plaintiff.
We have carefully examined the evidence in this record. It shows that defendant and his family resided at Clinton, Missouri, but that the wife and five children went to Springfield, Missouri, to be with the wife’s parents as she was' about to be confined. They remained in Springfield about two months. The evidence shows that defendant- never authorized plaintiff to let the Nelson family (the wife’s parents) have groceries, and plaintiff himself testified that he had never seen the defendant. Defendant’s wife stated positively that she never had any dealings'with the plaintiff and was never in his store, and she is corroborated by her mother. The' wife said that she never agreed to pay the account. The mother said that neither the defendant nor defendant’s wife ever told her to charge the goods to them. The evidence shows that the defendant did make arrangements with Frank Dickerson to let his family have some .goods, and defendant later paid the bill amounting to about eighteen dollars. Mrs. McEwen stated that on the day they left for Clinton, homeward bound, “we got part of the lunch at the store; we got some cheese at Hamilton’s and they (the children) got the cookies some place else. They said Mr. Hamilton gave them the money, that he did not have the cookies they wanted. We used part of the cookies in the lunch' going home.”
The judgment will be affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.