Hamlett v. Coates
Hamlett v. Coates
Opinion of the Court
The appellant, Mrs. M. E. Hamlett, brought this suit against the appel-lee, Mrs. M. B. Coates, in the form of trespass to try title to recover possession of a house and lot in the town of Italy, Tex., and sued out a writ of sequestration. The affidavit for the issuance of the writ of sequestration was made by T. B. Hamlett, agent of tbe plaintiff, Mrs. Hamlett, and tbe ground alleged therefor is that the affiant fears the defendant, Mrs. Coates, will use her possession of the property in controversy to injure the same, or to convert to her own use the fruits or revenues produced by the same. The defendant answered by a general demurrer, and pleas of denial and not guilty. She also filed a plea in reconvention for damages, alleging, in substance, that she rented the property in controversy from plaintiff, through her agent, T. B. Hamlett, about April 30, 1912, for a term of one year, at $15 per month, and with the understanding and agreement at the lime of entering into such contract that if she paid her rent during such term, she might have the premises as long as she desired; that in pursuance of said agreement and understanding and with the consent of the plaintiff she held over the premises upon the terms of the prior rental contract and paid the rent up to the time she was dispossessed of the rented premises by tbe execution of the writ of sequestration herein; that said renewal contract began May 1, 1913, and would expire May 1, 1914, and that by the terms of said contract defendant was entitled to the possession of said premises during the whole of said time, but that plaintiff in violation of saidi contract, knowingly, willfully, and maliciously and without probable cause procured and caused tbe writ of sequestration herein sued out to be executed, and defendant and her family ejected from said premises, and her furniture, household goods, and wearing apparel piled in the street, whereby said property was damaged in the sum of $100. Defendant further alleged that at the time of the execution of said writ of sequestration she was engaged in the boarding house business and had a large number of boarders, who were paying her a total of $88 a week; that by reason of being dispossessed of the premises in question she was forced to discontinue her said business, whereby she was damaged in the sum of $1,000. Defendant further avers that by reason of the execution of the writ of sequestration “she was humiliated, aggrieved, distressed, and made to suffer in mind and body, which injured and impaired her health,” for which she had *1146 sustained the further damage in the sum of $2,500; that by reason of said writ of sequestration having been sued out, willfully, maliciously, and without probable cause she has been damaged in the further sum of $2,-500. Defendant prays that she recover of plaintiff as actual damages the sum of $3,-600, and as exemplary damages the sum of $2,500. A jury trial resulted in a verdict in favor of the defendant on her plea in re-convention for the sum of $1,940 apportioned as follows: Damages to furniture $20; damages for loss of business $420; humiliation and grief $500; exemplary damages $1,000. Judgment was entered that plaintiff recover possession of the property sued for and in accordance with the jury’s verdict against the plaintiff for the damages awarded, and she appealed.
The first assignment of error complains of the court’s refusal to give appellant’s special charge instructing the jury to return a verdict in her favor. The propositions advanced under this assignment are, in substance; (1) That while neither party in trespass to try title is required to plead his title specially, yet, if he does, he must recover, if at all, on the title pleaded, and that defendant having by her plea in reconvention specifically relied on an alleged rental contract for a year “with the further understanding and agreement at the time of entering into said contract that if defendant should pay her rent during said term, she might have the premises as long as she desired,” and the evidence failing to show any such agreement, but showing that the year for which the defendant had rented had expired before suit, and plaintiff’s ownership of the property being admitted, the jury should have been instructed to find for plaintiff; (2) that the proof failing to show any agreement extending beyond the year, but showing at most only a unilateral promise without consideration appellee did not sustain the issue tendered by her, and the jury should have been instructed to find for appellant; (3) that when there is a lease of lands for a yearly term at a fixed monthly rental, and the tenant holds over after the end of the term, the landlord has an election to dispossess him, or treat him as a tenant for a new term; that the election is with the landlord, and not with the tenant; and, rent being paid and received according to the terms of the expired lease, there is a presumption that the new holding is upon the terms of the expired contract; but this is only a presumption of fact, and may be rebutted by proof of a different state of facts, and in every case of holding over the nature of such holding, and the relations created thereby, are questions of fact, to be determined from all the circumstances.
“The tenant who holds over after the end of the term under which he entered with consent of his landlord is deemed to be in possession upon the terms of his prior lease, upon the ground that the parties are presumed to have tacitly renewed the former agreement.”
The English doctrine, as stated by Mr. Smith on Landlord and Tenant, and quoted in the case of San Antonio v. French, supra, is as follows;
“But though at the end of the lease if the tenant holds over he holds as a tenant at sufferance, still if, when the period for the payment of the rent becomes due, he pay the landlord the rent reserved by the expired lease he becomes a tenant from year to year, the payment of such rent by him and the receipt of it by his landlord being considered indicative of their mutual intention to create a yearly tenancy.”
The parties in the case before us entered into a verbal contract for the renting of the property in controversy, and, while the evidence was sharply conflicting as to whether the renting was for a year or by the month, it was sufficient to warrant the conclusion that it was for a year, and that appellee continued in possession of the rented premises ¡after the expiration of her time with the tacit or implied consent of the appellant. And the testimony is undisputed that appellant accepted from appellee, for several months after the expiration of one year from the date of the rental contract, the same rent paid prior thereto, and made no demand, according to appellee’s testimony, for possession of the rented premises until about the time this suit was instituted. Appellant’s contention is that the renting was by the month, and that upon that theory alone the rent paid by appellee after the expiration of the year was accepted. On the other hand, the appellee contends that she had rented the *1147 premises for a year, and that without objection on the part of the appellant she paid the rent as she had formerly done. These respective contentions involved, under the evidence adduced, issues of fact for the determination of the jury, and the court properly declined to instruct the jury to return a verdict for the appellant. There was some testimony to the effect that subsequent to the making of the rental contract and the entry upon the rented premises by appellee, appellant said to appellee that as long as she paid her rent she could have the place,- but there is no testimony that at the time said contract was entered into it was agreed and understood between appellant and appellee that if appellee paid her rent during the term beginning April 30, 1912, and ending April 30, 1913, she might have the premises as long as she desired. The issues were substantially as we have stated, and no question as to the contract being unilateral or obnoxious to the statute of frauds arises.
It is next urged by appellant that the trial court erred in admitting evidence tending to show damage from loss of business by ap-pellee as a boarding house keeper, and in submitting as an element of damage, which might be recovered, loss of profits to her as a boarding house keeper, because such loss of profits were not the measure of her damages, in that it was not alleged that appellant knew or had reason to expect that such damages would accrue to appellee from being dispossessed of the property sued for, and because the evidence on these points was insufficient, too vague and uncertain to support a recovery for such damages; and, further, because it developed in the testimony that the defendant was a married woman at the time of the transaction, made the basis of this suit, and no facts were shown which would authorize her to maintain a suit for the recovery of such damages, as such damages, if recoverable at all, constituted a community claim of appellee and her husband, the right of action for which was in him and not in her.
“I don’t know where my husband is now. We are not living together, and were not when this suit was instituted, and have not been living together- since. I have never requested him to join me in this suit. He does not know anything about it one way or the other.”
It may be conceded that this testimony, which is all that was offered on the subject, fails to show such an abandonment. of the appellee by her husband as authorized her to maintain a suit for a recovery of the damages sued for in this action, and yet we think appellant is in no position to urge her incapacity to do so. Appellee is sued by appellant as a feme sole, and nowhere in the record does it appear that her coverture was unknown to appellant at the time the suit was brought. The appellee did not plead her coverture, and the judgment taken against her for the title and possession of the house and lot sued for by appellant, in its operation *1148 and effect, is the same as if rendered against a feme sole. Focke v. Sterling, 18 Tex. Civ. App. 8, 44 S. W. 611. The appellee contends that inasmuch as her husband was not made a party defendant herein, and the suit prosecuted against her alone, she not only was authorized to defend the action brought against her, but also to sue for and recover the damages by reason of the wrongful suing out of the sequestration therein. This seems fair and reasonable, but we do not find it necessary to decide that question. In the case of Caldwell v. Brown, 43 Tex. 216, it is held that one sued as a feme sole, who is at the time married, but who appears and answers without pleading her coverture, cannot avail herself of the fact that she was a feme covert when the same is for the first time alleged in the assignments of error. Phelps v. Brackett, 24 Tex. 236. In Margaret Hab v. Johnston & Co., 1 White & W. Civ. Cas. Ct. App. 336, § 624, it is held that an objection to a judgment that it was improperly rendered against a married woman, her husband not being joined in the suit, comes too late when made for the first time on'motion in arrest of judgment. And in Rosenbaum v. Harloe, 1 White & W. Civ. Cas. Ct. App. 489, § 849, in which the wife sued alone, it is held that if facts exist which will defeat the right of the wife to sue alone, but such facts do not appear upon the face of the petition, they must be pleaded and proven; that the burden is upon the defendant to make good the plea. In the ease at bar the appellee in her cross-action or plea in reconvention to recover the damages alleged to have been sustained by the execution of the writ of sequestration sued out by appellant occupied the position of plaintiff, and her coverture did not appear upon the face of her pleadings, and it devolved upon appellant, if facts existed which would have defeated her right to maintain said cross-action, to allege and prove them. So it not appearing by pleading or proof that appellant was not aware of the coverture of the'appellee until the fact was disclosed by the evidence in the trial of the case, objection that she was not authorized to sue for and recover the damages set up in her plea of intervention came too late when made for the first time in the motion for a new trial filed in the district court, and now urged in this court as ground for reversal of that court’s judgment.
“It is too plain for argument that this does not belong to either of the classes of cases in which compensation has been allowed for mental suffering.”
We have said that exemplary damages were not recoverable under the facts of this case, and in no event then were damages for “humiliation and grief” caused the appellee by the issuance and execution of the sequestration complained of an element of appel-lee’s damages.
The judgment of the court below awarding appellee actual damages in the sum of $440 for injury to her furniture and for “loss of business” will be affirmed, and the judgment awarding appellee actual damages in the sum of $500 for “humiliation and grief,” and in awarding her $1,000 as exemplary damages, will be reversed, and judgment here rendered in favor of appellant as to those items of damage.
Affirmed in part; reversed and rendered in part.
<@=For other eases see same topic and KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes
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