Lester v. Hutson
Lester v. Hutson
Opinion of the Court
The plaintiff, Hutson, as administratrix, alleged the execution and delivery by Lester to her deceased husband, John Hutson, of the following instrument:
“Canyon, Texas, January 8, 1907.
“State of Texas, County of Randall.
“I, L. T. Lester, agree to sell to John Hutson, or order, sections 11, Blk. K 14, B. S. & F. Cert. No. 127; 15, block K 14, J. Gibson Cert. No. 129; 17, Blk. K 14, B. S. & F. Cert. No. 1/51 — all these sections are located in Deaf Smith Co., Texas.
“Also section 11, Blk. 1, T. T. R. R. Co. Cert. No. 54; also section 12, Blk. 1, T. T. R. R. Co. Cert. SíG^both situated in Randall county, Texas.
“Upon the said John Hutson paying me the sum of $8,106.67, and balance due on said sections with accrued interest and other expenses, with S% interest from date.
“This agreement to hold good until September the 12th, 1907.
“Witness my hand this the 8th day of January, 1907. [Signed] L. T. Lester.”
Plaintiff also averred a supplementary agreement of extension and modification of the above contract; also charging Lester with the sale by him as the possessor of the legal title of a considerable portion of the land embraced in said contract; that he was trustee for Hutson; alleging, further, the assertion of claim of title by the defendant, Lester, constituting a cloud upon the title; praying for an accounting, and that the cloud be removed.
Plaintiff’s petition, in its essentials, is thoroughly reproduced in the former opinion of Chief Justice Huff, on a former appeal to this court, and reported as Lester v. Hutson, 167 S. W. 324.
The questions involving Lester’s plea of privilege to be sued in the county of his residence, his general demurrer, asserting the proposition that the plaintiff’s pleading fails to show such an equitable title as that an action to remove cloud could be maintained, also advancing the subsidiary proposition that the above contract was merely an option, and supplementing this with the contention that the petition is, or should be, one of specific performance, further claiming that the alleged supplementary contract is within the statute of frauds, all of which were thoroughly discussed in the former opinion.
Before discussing any of the remaining assignments we set out the following evidence, and submit the following conclusions: It is undisputed that the contract of January 8, 1907, was executed and delivered by Lester to John Hutson; that as late as July, 1910, and at different times prior thereto, and to different persons, Hutson made claim to- a portion of the property embraced in ■ said contract; that subsequent to said contract *270 and tlie date, on its face, of its expiration, Hutson assumed actual possession of a portion of said land, cultivated tlie same, and placed thereupon certain improvements ; that there is no formal contract of relinquishment to Lester by Hutson of the land.
Referable to the question of an actual extension of this contract, the following testimony, by one J. M. Edelen, engaged-in the commission and loan business at Kansas City, Mo., is reproduced:
“I knew John Hutson intimately for 10 years prior to his death. 1-Ie sought to secure a loan from me on two occasions, in the year 1910 on a tract of 1% sections, of land known as Mr. Hutson’s Palo Duro ránch, situated partly in Deaf Smith and partly in Randall county, Tex. This occurred some time in April or May, 1910. and again in July of the same year. He stated to me that he owned both the Palo Duro and the Tierra Blanca ranches, and wished to borrow money for himself. I had a conversation with Mr. Lester, the defendant in this case, relative to his interest in these lands. This occurred after the death of Mr. Hutsón and some time in the fall of 1911, in the Amarillo Hotel, at Amarillo, Tex. He asked me whether or not I had been shown the lands by Mr. Hutson, for the purpose of making a loan on the land. * * * He asked me the amount of the loan and the purpose for which Mi'. Hutson stated he wanted the loan. I stated to him that Mr. Hutson wanted 89,500, of which he wished $8,-500 to pay him, Mr. Lester, for the balance of the purchase price of the land, and the balance for some personal use, which he did not tell about. [This last statement was admitted by the court ‘for the limited purpose of showing what the witness stated to Lester, and not for the purpose of praying the statement of Hutson to be true.’] * * * Mr. Lester stated to me that he had previously sold the land, offered me as security for a loan by Mr. Hutson, to Mr. Hutson, under a written contract of sale; that the time for the final payment for the' lands under the terms of the contract had expired at the time Mr. Hutson had shown the lands to me. * * * That he had agreed that Mr. Hut-son might keep the land after the time had expired, on condition that he pay the balance of the purchase money due, as provided in the contract, * * * and that he had urged Mr. Hutson to make the payment.”
Bronx the testimony of D. A. Parks, cashier of the bank of which Lester is president, it is undisputed that subsequent to the date of the alleged maturity of the contract on its face, Lester and Hutson had under consideration a matter of settlement with reference to said lands, and in the fall of 1909 a statement, purporting to show how the matter stood, was made up by Mr. Parks and handed to Hutson, with details of the purchase price, interest, taxes, the amounts which certain portions of the land had brought, on account of certain sales made by Lester, and mentioning real estate commissions. It is really undisputed,. perforce of succeeding circumstances, after the date of the contract as exhibited in this record, that Hutson accepted the contract of January, 1907.
“It presents itself to us as evidence of high value, when thoroughly established, for it is of that nature which may successfully challenge contradiction when effectively proved. What the party himself has said or done, at a time when the litigation perhaps was not thought of, if the certainty of it is established, having regard to the circumstances of time, place, and person, should, and often does, furnish a substantial reason for his defeat, when a trial discloses his case founded on facts inconsistent with those which he has himself adopted, and to which he has given publication.” Volume 2, § 236, bottom page 358 and top page 359.
In view of the record in this case, many of appellant’s assignments of error, if we were to even consider a review of some of the questions as legal propositions which we are not disposed to do, are devitalized to such an extent that no error could be shown.
The case of Cunningham, Adm’r, v. Phillips, 4 Okl. 169, 44 Pac. 221, by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, in its essential elements, affords a strong analogy. Phillips in his suit against the administrator claimed-that, when Berger, the deceased, purchased the land in controversy, the deceased was his tenant, and such status constituted Berger his .trustee, praying that the administrator execute a deed. The plaintiff, Phillips, was allowed to testify to the making of a lease with Berger, the loss of the same by himself, the contents of said lease, and the payment of rent by Berger. The court said:
“This testimony constituted a very important and material part of the evidence produced in behalf of the plaintiff. * * * It is impossible to conclude, after a careful examination of the evidence in the case, that, if the testimony had been excluded as provided by the statute, the finding and judgment could have been rendered.in his behalf.”
To testify to a transaction which, by its force, would destroy plaintiff’s case. is certainly within the spirit of the statute, and the same was enacted to prevent such a result when the other party cannot be heard.
Complaint is also made, under another assignment, that this charge constitutes error, because the defendant, Lester, was not required, under the terms of the contract, to take any affirmative action with reference to the rescission. Por the same reason this as *272 signment Is also overruled. The ninth, twelfth, and thirteenth assignments are in the same category, and are not sustained.
The fourth proposition under appellant’s twenty-first assignment of error is not embraced within his objection to this charge. We think the charge is clear, is not upon the weight of the evidence, and is not calculated to confuse, raised by another proposition, but in reality enlightens, the jury on the questions presented. If the contract was continued in force, and parts of the land were sold during the pendency of the extension, necessarily Lester was a trustee, not only of the legal title, but of the proceeds as applicable to the payment of the debt, and irrespective whether there was any express contract, or not, for the extension, so it was in force.
When Hutson made the written acknowledgment to Herd, the agent of Post, disclaiming any interest in the land, and declaring that he was a tenant of Lester, the jury was entitled to consider the following conditions: As explanatory of his possession, Hutson had claimed the land as late as July, 1910. Prior *273 to the purchase of this land by Lester from the Cedar Valley Land & Cattle Company, Hutson had been the agent of that company, and continued to be until the time of his death, in January, 1911. Lester had sold several parcels of land embraced in the January contract to different parties prior to the time of the disclaimer. Negotiations for a settlement, with these sales considered, had occurred some time in 1909. Lester said that the figures on Parks’ memoranda were made to see what the profits were on the land embraced in the contract. When these sales were made, Hutson, who was also an attorney in fact for the land company, had released the lien for Lester on the tracts, relative to which some of the amounts had not been paid by Lester, nor upon the original notes to the corporation. The notes, or a part at least, which Lester originally gave for all the land, were existent. The day of reckoning was to come, both for Lester and Hutson. To obtain the Post money was expedient for both parties. With a considerable amount of Hutson’s debt to Lester having been paid in equity, on account of Lester’s sales, the jury had the further right to consider whether Hutson, as between him and Lester, was, or not, actually eliminating his interest in the remaining land by the statement to Herd. An analysis of the testimony of the two witnesses, engaged in the real estate business, as to the declarations of Hutson, in regard to the latter’s interest in the remaining land— one stating the declarations were made to him in May, 1910, and the other witness testifying that Hutson made statements to him in November or December, 1910—in connection with conditions and other testimony, could have been rejected by the jury. We think the testimony raised the question whether the disclaimer was made for a special purpose as between Hutson and Lester.
Paragraph 6 of the court’s main charge presents a similar question, upon the matter of disclaimer, as well as to the execution of some releases of the vendor’s lien to Lester, executed by Hutson (for Herd’s benefit) as agent of the Cedar Valley Land & Cattle Company, at the time Herd loaned the money to Lester, submitted as estoppel. The nineteenth assignment complains of this paragraph that there is no evidence to sustain such a charge, and that it detracts from the weight to the jury of the disclaimer. For the reasons above, we overrule said assignment.
“The deeds should have been excluded because there is no evidence that the consideration re< cited in said respective deeds was the true con sideration.”
This proposition, in its broad presentation, with no statement under it, in view of the record, should not be sustained by this court. We are not required to reframe a proposition in accordance with, and make it fit, the actual record, nor to make a statement of the testimony which the brief should append, for the purpose of elucidating the actual point, if one exists. Lester did testify, however, as to some of the deeds, when interrogated about them, and said that they did recite the true consideration, without any question asked, nor statement by him, as to the other deeds. ,
“Q. Mr. Lester; state to the jury whether or not you were paid any lease or rents for section 11 and the north half of section 12, in Randall county, during the time Mr. Hutson was in possession of it.”
The bill merely recites:
“If the witness had been permitted to answer such question, he would have answered in the affirmative.”
“Under well-settled rules it must be made td appear in a bill of exceptions taken to the exclusion of evidence what the evidence was, and that its exclusion may have influenced the judgment.” Holstein v. Adams, 72 Tex. 490, 10 S. W. 562.
This bill, though it shows the answer, does not undertake to show the connection, or, in reality, the materiality, of the testimony. The mere statement by Lester, that he was paid rents for the land during the time Hutson was in possession would leave its materiality suspended. The bill should have gone further and shown, notwithstanding the nature of the objections in the same, that this testimony could, and would, have been followed by other testimony, and showing in what manner Hutson would have been affected. The mere general statement by Lester that he was paid rents during the time of Hutson’s possession would suspend its materiality—paid by whom, and what contractual connection would Hutson have had with the payment? It is unnecessary in this view to discuss the legal questions raised under this assignment.
“It was error * * _ * to submit the matter of an accounting, inasmuch as there is no. evidence in the record showing, or tending to-show, the propriety of such accounting.”
*274 If the jury found for plaintiff; the testimony certainly raised an accounting of some character between Lester and Hutson, and defendant does not object to the method submitted by the court of stating the account, nor any suggestion that the trial court was in error in stating the principles of accounting. This particular charge has many sub-paragraphs, and the trial court seems to have covered every conceivable detail arising upon the record, as to the manner of the charges and the application of credits, applying subsidiary principles applicable to different matters of such debits and credits.
As to many of the principles applicable to particular accounts in certain portions of the record, there can be no question but what the testimony raises those particular issues. The Supreme Court of the United States, in Railway Co. v. Earnest, 229 U. S. 122, 33 Sup. Ct. 657, 57 L. Ed. 1096, Ann. Cas. 1914C, 172, said:
“We must * * * apply the rule that where an instruction embodies several propositions of law, to some of which no objection properly could be taken, a general exception to the entire instruction will not entitle the ex-ceptor to take advantage of a mistake or error in some single or minor proposition therein.”
The thirtieth, thirty-first, thirty-second, thirty-third, thirty-fourth, thirty-fifth, thirty-sixth, and thirty-seventh assignments of error assail the action of the court in admitting the testimony of the different witnesses as to declarations of Hutson of ownership of the land. This court in the former opinion (167 S. W. pages 328, 329, 330) discussed thoroughly this character of testimony, announcing the limitations of purpose for which said testimony could be used, and further discussion is unnecessary. The trial court conformed the use of the testimony to that holding.
Other assignments in this brief are disposed of by the reasons adduced above, except certain matters which we think unnecessary to discuss.
The judgment is affirmed.
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