Cleveland State Bank v. Turner

278 S.W. 1107
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 9, 1925
DocketNo. 1293.
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 278 S.W. 1107 (Cleveland State Bank v. Turner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cleveland State Bank v. Turner, 278 S.W. 1107 (Tex. Ct. App. 1925).

Opinion

O’QUINN, J.

The Cleveland State Bank sued W. R. Turner on a note for $6,331.55, and to foreclose a mortgage on certain cattle given to secure the payment of the note. The suit was brought before the maturity of the note, on the ground (stated in their affidavit for writ of sequestration) that the security given to secure the payment of the note was being neglected and injured by Turner so as to impair the bank’s security. A writ of sequestration was issued and levied upon some of Turner’s cattle. At the maturity of the note, Turner paid same and the bank released the cattle which it had sequestrated, with the exception of some that had died and some that had escaped and were lost. Turner then reconvened for damages in the suit brought by the bank, and on the trial of the case the jury found for Turner in the sum of $3,165.77. Turner filed a remittitur for $250. Judgment was rendered for Turner, the bank’s motion for a new trial was overruled, and the case is before us on appeal.

Before presenting the matters assigned as errors, as shown by their motion for a new trial, appellants urge three assignments asserted to be fundamental, and apparent up on the face of the record. The first is:

“The cross-bill of W. R. Turner, in so far as it seeks to recover damages for injury for $15 per head for 212 head of, cattle is insufficient in law to state a cause of action, and is insufficient to support a judgment of the court, for the reason that the allegations of said cross-bill that 212 head of cattle were damaged in the sum of $15 a head is not competent as a basis for a judgment of the court, because the measure of damages, if any, for the seizure of the cattle, was the difference between the market value of the cattle at the time seized and at the time returned, or at the time sold by Turner; and such damage being in the nature of special damage must be specially pleaded, and there is no pleading upon which to base a verdict and judgment.”

The allegations in the cross-bill complained of are:

“That said writ ^o issued by said parties and the bank as aforesaid was directed to the sheriff of San Jacinto (county), Tex., and they wrongfully and unlawfully, maliciously and fraudulently caused and procured thereunder the taking and conversion without the consent of this defendant of 230 head of cattle belonging to this defendant upon the range in said county and which were of the reasonable and market value of $25 per head. That said cattle so taken as aforesaid were with the consent and connivance and suggestion of the bank and said parties removed a great distance from their said range, to wit, out of San Jacinto county and into liberty county, and there placed and held upon insufficient pasturage, and were frequently dipped while in a weak eon- *1109 dition by reason of such insufficient care and having been driven said great distance aforesaid, and were otherwise mistreated and neglected by said bank and said other defendants named herein. All of said acts in reference to said cattle so procured to be taken were done and performed by the said bank and the other parties named herein, and with the knowledge and consent and under and by their direction and under and by reason of said wrongful and illegal writ of sequestration aforesaid, and under their pretended rights under said mortgage aforesaid.
“That by reason of the gathering and taking and the handling and the moving and the dipping of said cattle as aforesaid and the insufficient pasturage upon which they were placed in liberty county upon their removal, said cattle were greatly injured and damaged, to wit, in the sum of $15 per head.
“That when said note became due on the 24th day of January, 1923, this defendant promptly paid the same, and the said plaintiff bank and other parties hereto restored to this defendant 212 head of cattle so wrongfully taken by them as hereinbefore set out, and which are in said damaged and injured condition, as hereinabove described, but kept and retained and converted to their own use and benefit or wrongfully and unlawfully destroyed 17 head of said cattle of the value of $25 per head at the time the said cattle were so wrongfully taken and converted by them as aforesaid.
“That by reason of the malicious, fraudulent, and unlawful acts of said bank and the said parties named herein as defendants to the cross-bill, this defendant as been injured and damaged in the sum of $15 per head for said 212 head of cattle restored to him as aforesaid, and the sum of $25 per head for said 17 cattle so wrongfully taken, destroyed, and converted by the said bank and the other parties herein named as aforesaid, being a total sum of $3,605 actual damages suffered and sustained by reason of said acts aforesaid.”

We think the assignment should he overruled. Appellants urged neither a general demurrer nor a special exception to the cross-petition, but treated same as sufficient, and went to trial on same. If appellants believed that appellee’s cross-bill was defective and did not state a cause of action, they should have excepted to same. Their assertion of fundamental error here is, in effect, a general demurrer to the sufficiency of appellee’s cross-bill, and is here made for the first time. If appellants’ objections to the sufficiency of appellee’s cross-bill had been presented to the court below and sustained, appellee would have had the right to amend same to meet the exceptions sustained, if he could. To sustain the contention here raised would deprive him of that right. The rule seems to be well settled that in determining on appeal whether in a suit for damages the petition was so fundamentally defective in its allegations as to damages as to be insufficient to support a recovery, the petition will be held good if it was good as against a general demurrer. We think the allegations of damages in the cross-bill were good as against a general demurrer. Every reasonable intendment and presumption that could have been indulged in favor of the petition below must be indulged here. Railway Co. v. Hamilton (Tex. Civ. App.) 163 S. W. 666 (writ denied); Lipscomb v. Adamson Lumber Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 217 S. W. 228; El Paso & Southwestern Co. v. Hall (Tex. Civ. App.) 156 S. W. 356; Tiefel Bros. & Winn v. Maxwell (Tex. Civ. App.) 154 S. W. 319; Houston Tie & Lbr. Co. v. Hankins (Tex. Civ. App.) 200 S. W. 237.

Appellants’ second assignment of fundamental error is:

“The cross-bill in this case is insufficient to show a cause of action against the Cleveland State Bank, for the reason that said cross-bill alleges that the property was seized by the sheriff of San Jacinto county under a writ of sequestration, and that whatever damage was occasioned to the property occurred while in the exclusive control and safe-keeping of the officer levying the writ, and fails to allege any act by the Cleveland State Bank and the other defendants in said cross-action that occasioned any damage, but on the contrary affirmatively shows that whatever damage, if any, was inflicted upon the cattle, occurred while said cattle were in the exclusive possession of the sheriff of San Jacinto county and beyond the control and possession of the Cleveland State Bank.”

The allegations in the cross-bill in this respect complained of are:

“That all of said parties reside in Liberty county, Tex. And the said E. L. Bramlette, J. M.

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Bluebook (online)
278 S.W. 1107, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cleveland-state-bank-v-turner-texapp-1925.