J. M. Radford Grocery Co. v. Flynn
J. M. Radford Grocery Co. v. Flynn
Opinion of the Court
Appellant sued appellee, Flynn, in the district court of Taylor county to recover án amount alleged to be due from the Bangs Mercantile Company, a partnership, of which Flynn was a member. The debt was for goods purchased by said mercantile company during the years 1911, 1912, and 1913. Appellee, Flynn, filed his plea of privilege to be sued in Brown county, alleging that to be the place of his residence. To defeat the plea of privilege plaintiff set up a certain financial statement made by Flynn for the Bangs Mercantile Company, in which there is this recital:
“We hereby agree that all indebtedness to the J. M..Radford Grocery Company is payable in Abilene, with interest at 10 per cent, per annum from maturity of the bill and 10 per cent, on the amount unpaid for attorney’s fees if placed with an attorney for collection. [Signed] Bangs Mercantile Company, per B. H. Flynn, Member of the Firm.”
Reference ■ to the statement of facts discloses that the plea of privilege was introduced in evidence, but that no other testimony was produced to sustain the facts al-. leged in it. The court qualified the bill ofi exception as follows:
“This bill of exception examined, found correct, and signed and approved and ordered filed as part of the record in this case, this the 30th day of March, A. D. 1917, with the qualification that it was an undisputed fact that defendant did live and at present reside in Brown county, Tex., and plaintiff did not accept on the ground that defendant did not- make formal proof of his residence.”
Appellee’s brief states that in open court every material fact alleged in plaintiff’s petition was admitted, as well as every material fact in defendant’s plea of privilege. We find no such admission in the record. Without the introduction of any testimony whatever to sustain the plea except the plea itself, introduced as evidence, the court ordered the venue changed to Brown county. Under one assignment of error appellant insists that this ruling is incorrect. This assignment must be sustained. Under Acts of the Thirty-Fifth Legislature, p. 388, a plea of privilege, duly verified and filed, is made prima facie evidence of the facts therein stated, but this law was not in operation when this case was tried. The only other evidence introduced, as shown by the statement of facts, is the written agreement signed by Flynn, as a member of the firm of the Bangs Mercantile Company, binding his partnership to pay all indebtedness then existing and subsequently incdrred, at Abilene. In his plea of privilege Flynn sets up the facts that he was not aware at the time of making the financial statement that it contained the provision making the firm’s indebtedness payable in Abilene; that he was deceived by plaintiff’s agent in signing the statement with such provision in it; that the firm account in suit had been satisfied in a certain real estate deal wherein he sold to one Gill, the vice president of appellant company, certain property in the town of Bangs, paying the debt with cash and vendor’s lien notes delivered to him by Gill, in payment for- said property. No evidence other than the plea itself was offered tending to establish these facts. The only testimony before the court at the time of his ruling sustaining the plea of privilege was the sworn plea and the written agreement to pay the indebtedness sued upon, in Abilene.
The judgment is therefore reversed, and the cause remanded.
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