Gray v. Stolley
Gray v. Stolley
Opinion of the Court
Appellee, as trustee, sued appellant to recover upon a promissory note for the sum .of $102,100. The defensive pleas were a denial of the execution of the note; the further denial that the same was based upon any consideration; and that the note was executed by J. E. Odiorne, the payee in said note, or by some other person unknown to appellant, to be used and was used by Odiorne to secure the dismissal of indictments pending in the district court of Lampasas county, Tex., against Odiorne and his wife.
The case was submitted to the jury upon three special issues. The questions and answers of the jury are, in substance, as follows:
(1) Did G. W. Gray execute the note sued on? Answer: “Yes.”
(2) At the date the note was signed, if at all, was Gray indebted to Odiorne? Answer: “He was.”
(3) What induced or moved Gray to execute said note? Answer: “This note was signed for the consideration therein expressed.”
Upon this verdict, the court rendered judgment for appellee for the full amount of the note, with interest and attorney’s fees, to be applied by • appellee to the payment of the claims of certain beneficiaries whose claims aggregated over $70,000 and interest, and the balance was adjudged to be paid to Mrs. J. E. Odiorne; the attorney’s fees being adjudged to be paid to certain named attorneys for plaintiff.
The evidence upon each of the issues submitted to the jury was sharply conflicting. The note was dated November 20, 1018, and was payable, four months after date, to the order of J. E. Odiorne—
“for value received. Upon its face, the note contained this recital: ‘This note is given in a final settlement between G. W. Gray and J. E. Odiorne, for all differences growing out of their partnership business in 1915, and also to pay J. E. Odiorne the amount agreed to be paid to him for turning back the 20-year lease on 32,000 acres of G. W. Gray’s land at 30 cents per acre per annum, from June 1, 1917, and for turning back to G. W. Gray about 6,000 head of cattle sold by G. W. Gray to J. E. Odiorne at same date of said lease. After allowing all credits and offsets, including cattle sold by G. W. Gray to J. E. Odiorne, and sold by J. E. Odiorne to others, there is yet this amount due from G. W. Gray to J. E. Odi-orne.’ ”
The note purported to be signed by G. W. Gray, and contained an indorsement of date January 20, 1919, to the order of appellee, as trustee, to be applied to the payment of certain claims owing by Odiorne, and the remainder to be paid to Mrs. J. E. Odiorne, or order.
Opinion.
It is also urged that the answer to special issue No. 3 was in the face of the great preponderance of the evidence, and manifestly shows that injustice has been done by the rendition of the verdict and judgment. It is claimed that, in view of the evidence, under *868 all the facts and circumstances of the transaction, it staggers credulity to believe that appellant would have signed the note for the consideration expressed. For these reasons, we are asked to revise the action of the trial court in overruling the motion for new trial, and to reverse the case.
We recognize fully that the discretion of a trial judge in refusing to set aside a verdict for improper conduct of a jury is not an arbitrary one, but that it is subject to review and revision by the appellate courts. This power to revise, however, should not be exercised, and the judgment reversed, save where .there has been a clear abuse of discretion. We have given the testimony of the jurors on this point very careful consideration, and have reached the conclusion that it has not been shown that the trial court improperly exercised the discretion permitted by law. Apart from the inferences which the jury were entitled to draw from the testimony, we are not convinced that the matters mentioned can reasonably be said to have influenced the jury in reaching their decision, especially in view of the sharply conflicting evidence, generally, given by appellant and J. E. Odiorne. We conclude that these assignments should also be overruled.
It is specially urged that because Odiorne handled the financial end of the business and kept no proper books of account of the partnership, and having given testimony to the effect that over $50,000 had been charged to his, Odiorne’s, account, for which he had not been repaid by Gray, and appellant having introduced in evidence a number of checks and drafts in support of such contention, the bank account at the bank became the best evidence, and also was admissible as affecting the credibility of Odiorne. The objections upon which the bank account was excluded were that the account was not the best evidence upon the issue, in that the original charge and credit slips would be the best evidence, and that the account was also incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial.
Appellant points out that not only did Odiorne testify that he wrote the words, “Charge J. E. Odiorne,” on checks signed by Gray, aggregating over $60,060 during the month of April, 1915, but that one of his attorneys on the stand testified and read to the jury from sheets from the bank books, containing the accounts of Odiorne, Gray, and the firm of Odiorne & Gray, showing various amounts charged to Odiorne’s account, and that some of them had not been repaid to Odi-orne. The bank account in question is shown by the bill of exceptions to consist of the deposits of J. E. Odiorne in such bank from August, 1914, to .Tuly, 1915, and checks against his deposits for about the same period of time. ’There was an agreement of the parties to use the various sheets of the bank books, to show the account of Odiorne with the San Saba National Bank for the year 1915, and also the accounts of Gray and the *869 firm of Gray and Odiorne for said year. As stated above, appellee bad introduced some of these accounts, and his attorney had read therefrom to the jury. It is claimed by appellant — and such bank account seems to support the claim1 — that the large cheeks given by Gray in April, 1915, upon which Odiorne indorsed the notation to charge to his account, were not, in fact, charged against his account, and also that some of the items which Mr. Baker, attorney for appellee, read to the jury as being charged to, but not repaid to, Odiorne, would be circumstantially shown by this bank account not to have been .charged at all against Odiorne, or that were repaid to him. It is not claimed these facts would conclusively show that Odiorne’s contention was not correct, but that they would tend to do so, and also to impeach Odiorne. With this contention we agree in substance, and believe that the court erred, to the material prejudice of appellant, in not admitting this testimony. In view of the other evidence admitted, and in connection with the drafts, checks, credit slips, etc., it cannot be said that this bank account was objectionable as not being the best evidence. Furthermore, it would seem to fall within the spirit of the rule that where one party introduces a part of a document or account, the adverse party may introduce the remainder. It may be possible that this account contained some irrelevant data, but even that is not disclosed, and we do not think it is shown to be of such character as was calculated to so confuse the jury, or to render the account inadmissible.
The issue upon which this testimony bore especially was the consideration for the note. Appellee did not see fit to rest upon the testimony of Odiorne that the consideration for the note w.as as recited therein. He offered the testimony of Odi’orne upon specific items of large amounts, and read from the bank books to show, in detail, that Gray was indebted to Odiorne in excess of over half the amount of the note, at the termination of the partnership. This very fact may have been the controlling consideration in determining that Gray was indebted to Odiorne, and also may have strongly influenced them in deciding the other two issues. They may have been unwilling to accept Odiorne’s general statement, but when he was apparently supported by documents and records of the bank, this may have thrown the scale in ap-pellee’s favor. We conclude that the testimony was admissible, especially upon the issue of consideration, and that it was also competent generally on the question of the credibility of Odiorne, as tending to impeach him. Under the unusual circumistances of' this case, as shown by the record, we believe that there was material error in the exclusion of this evidence, for which the case must be reversed.
This disposes of all the questions presented by the appeal, and, for the error indicated, the judgment will be reversed, and cause remanded.
Reversed and remanded.
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