Edwards v. Mayes
Edwards v. Mayes
Opinion of the Court
Y. C. Mayes, plaintiff in the court below, brought this suit against Thomas C. Edwards, defendant, to recover upon a debt for $500 and to foreclose a mortgage lien upon certain personal property. Plaintiff alleged that, upon September 7, 1908, he sold and delivered to defendant a certain secondhand, well-boring outfit for the price of $850, of which $350 was paid in cash and the balance, $500, to be paid on the 7th day of November, 1908, for which the defendant agreed to execute and deliver to him his promissory note for said sum, due and payable on said date; and further agreed that plaintiff should retain a lien on said property as security for said balance, and to execute to plaintiff a chattel mortgage upon said property as such security. He further alleged that defendant, after taking possession of said property, had failed and refused to execute the note and mortgage. He prayed for judgment for his debt and for foreclosure of the mortgage lien.
Defendant answered by general denial, and specially pleaded that plaintiff, before the sale, represented to defendant that one of the pumps included in the sale was 8x5x10 inches in size and the other 10x6x12 inches in size, and both in first-class condition, and that the boiler, also included in the trade, was a first-class, A No. 1, 35 horse power boiler, and pleaded a breach of warranty as to the size of the pumps and the condition of the pumps and boiler; that the smaller pump was so badly worn out it could not be safely used, and that in order to put the other in such condition that it could be used he was compelled to and did expend $85 for its repair, after which the pump could be used, but with the result that it took one-third more time to drill the well than it would have taken if the pump had been in good condition as warranted, and at a consequent expense to defendant of $400 more than he would have had if the same had been in the condition as warranted. He further pleaded that the property at the time he received it was worth $500 less than its value would have been, had it been in the condition, and the pump the size, represented; and, further, that he had expended $110 for necessary repairs on the boiler to put it in the condition as represented by plaintiff. He further alleged that certain articles included in the sale were never delivered to him, and that the value of the same was $100. He prayed for judgment over against plaintiff for the aggregate of said amounts.
The case was tried before a jury, and resulted in a vérditít and judgment for plaintiff tor the amount of his alleged debt and foreclosure of the mortgage lien, and from this judgment the defendant has appealed.
An inspection of the three bills of exception, to which reference is made in the statement following this assignment, discloses that the court sustained plaintiff’s objection to the testimony of two witnesses offered by defendant to prove that after the sale had been, made the plaintiff made certain statements concerning the size of one of the pumps, and also refused to permit defendant to prove, on cross-examination of plaintiff, the amount plaintiff had paid for the property in question at sheriff’s sale. We think this assignment is too general.
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Defendant requested the court to charge the jury as follows: “You are instructed that if you believe from the evidence that some of the articles which were contracted to be delivered were not at the place where they were said to be, then, inasmuch as it is not shown what the value of the remainder is, you are instructed to find a verdict for defendant.”
The court charged the jury in effect that, if they found for plaintiff in any amount, and if they believed from the evidence that defendant agreed to execute a chattel mortgage to secure the purchase price of the machinery, they should foreclose such mortgage. This charge is assailed by appellant’s thirteenth assignment upon the ground that, as no chattel mortgage was in fact given, it could not be foreclosed, and that plaintiff’s only remedy was an action of debt, and possibly for damages for failure to execute the mortgage, which damages are not claimed in this suit.
Plaintiff testified that a part of the terms of sale was that defendant should execute and deliver to him a mortgage on the property as security for the balance of the purchase price, but that defendant thereafter failed and refused to execute and deliver such mortgage.
The sixteenth assignment is as follows: “The court erred in submitting v this case at all to the jury, and in receiving any verdict from. the jury, and in rendering any judgment at all in this cause, for that it appears upon the face of the plaintiff’s original petition herein filed, which is the plaintiff’s pleadings upon which the cause was tried, that the matter in controversy is the alleged amount owing the plaintiff upon the alleged contract between him and defendant, and the foreclosure of an alleged lien upon certain personal property therein set out, and no value of said personal property is anywhere alleged or set out by plaintiff. And it does not appear that said personal property exceeds in value $200, and it does not appear that it does not exceed in value $1,000, which failure to allege facts to confer jurisdiction upon the county court was called to the attention of said court by motion for new trial, and said motion was overruled.”
While the debt sued for was within the jurisdiction of the county court, the value of the property upon which the lien was foreclosed was not alleged, unless the allegation of the price for which it was sold was tantamount to an allegation of its value. Har-grave v. Simpson, 25 Tex. 396. But should the court, because of the failure to allege the value of the property, have refused to render any judgment at all, or have refused to receive the verdict, as complained in the assignment?
We have examined the other assignments presented by appellant in his brief and find no reversible error in any of them. The judgment of the court below is affirmed.
Affirmed.
Reference
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- Edwards v. Mayes.
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