Filley v. Billings

42 N.W. 713, 26 Neb. 537, 1889 Neb. LEXIS 161
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedMay 31, 1889
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 42 N.W. 713 (Filley v. Billings) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Filley v. Billings, 42 N.W. 713, 26 Neb. 537, 1889 Neb. LEXIS 161 (Neb. 1889).

Opinion

Cobb, J.

This cause was before this court at a former term on error to a former trial in the district court of Gage county. The judgment below, then, for the defendant, was reversed, and the cause remanded. The opinion is published in the 21st volume of our Reports, at pp. 511-25. Upon the second trial in the district court, a verdict and judgment were rendered for the plaintiff, and the cause is now brought forward again, on error, by the defendant.

[538]*538Plaintiff in error, in his brief, presents fifteen points, which will be noticed separately or by convenient groups.

I. The- plaintiff, being on the stand as a witness in his own behalf, after having stated the facts and circumstances of the sale by him to the defendant, of forty-two marketable steers, and a hundred and one fat hogs, testified that at the request of the defendant the hogs and steers should be delivered at his place and weighed, ready for shipment; some ten days earlier than had been originally intended, the cattle and hogs were driven to defendant’s place of business. The examination and testimony of plaintiff were continued as follows:

Q. Now, after they were all driven up, the cattle and the hogs, where were they weighed?

A. They were weighed on those cattle scales.

Q,. How many cattle were weighed?

A. Forty-two steers that day.

Q,. How many hogs?

A. It appears to me one hundred and one hogs, as well as I remember.
Q. Who weighed them?-
A. Mr. Filley.

Q,. How were these scales situated as to standing, north and south, or east and west, lengthwise?

A. I think the cattle went, as well as I mind now, on the south side, and were driven out on the north or west side. I would not say which.

Q,. Which side did they go in at?

A. On the south side.

Q,. After they were driven in, state what position would they take.

A. Like all cattle driven in, they would beat back against the back side of the scales as much as possible, and crowd backward and forward.

Q,. What transpired during the weighing of that stock that day?

[539]*539A. When they went in they were driven in, and theré was a board out on the north side of the cattle scales, up about as high as a steer’s head, and when they were driven in they bulged up against that side, and I thought they were going to break out, maybe — run their heads through and break out. And there was a young man there who helped drive them up — Alva Lamb; — and when they acted like breaking out I told him to go and punch them back. Filley was weighing, and when he punched them back, the beam went up, and I said, “ Filley, the scales are not right; and when they go to the south side the beam goes up, and when they come back the beam goes down.” He said they were right; it was the wind. I said I didn’t think the wind could make two or three thousand pounds- difference. I told him they moved up and down as they went back and forward. We weighed them and drove them off; I noticed every draft; if they beat back south the beam would go up, and when they went north it would go down. I told him a good many times they were not right, and he said they were right, and kept flying out of humor, saying the scales were all right. I knew in my own mind they were not all right.

Q. How long have you had experience with cattle?

A. I have had experience with cattle for eight or ten years; ten, or twelve, or fourteen years, more or less, to no big extent.

Q,. Have you fed cattle?

A. I have fed cows, and some steers once in a while.

Q,. You have seen them weighed?

A. Yes, a good deal.

Q,. State whether or not at that time you thought your cattle — what your opinion was as to whether your cattle were weighing near as much as they ought to or not.

Over the defendant’s objection plaintiff answered, “Why; my opinion was they were not weighing near what they ought to; I saw that.” * * *

[540]*540Q. And then what was weighed?

A. We weighed the bull separate^; we weighed the hogs then.

Q,. Have you handled hogs a good deal?

A. Yes.

Q,. And seen them weighed ?

Q,. Have you fed them and weighed them?

A. Yes, for thirty years.

Q. You may state if you noticed anything in regard to the scales while he was weighing the hogs.

A. I don’t know as I did; only I knew the hogs were not weighing by one-fourth as much as they ought to; that is all.

On defendant’s objection, the above answer was stricken out as not responsive, and as immaterial, irrelevant, and incompetent.

Q. I will ask you what your opinion was as to whether your hogs Were weighing as much as they ought to weigh or not, on those scales?

Over the objection of the defendant, plaintiff answered : No, I was certain they were not weighing as much as they ought to.

Q,. By how much?

Over the objection of the defendant, plaintiff answered: I don’t think they weighed by one-fourth as much as they ought to, at all.

Plaintiff further testified that he was dissatisfied as to the weight of the stock, but could not get Eilley to examine the scales; he would not talk anything about it; he had bought on them, and sold on them, and knew they were right; he would not talk about it, or examine them; that plaintiff got defendant to weigh him, first on one end of the scales, then on the other; that he weighed twenty pounds more on the south end than on the north end of the platform; that defendant accounted for this by saying it was “ the wind;” [541]*541that after that they settled up, defendant paying him agreeably to the weight of the stock as then weighed; that he asked defendant what he would give him for twenty hogs left in his pen at home'; that they agreed upon a price, and plaintiff delivered the hogs the next day; that at the time of the delivery he found that defendant was not at home, but that Mr. Baughman, in defendant’s employ, was there attending to business for him; plaintiff asked Baughman if he would weigh the hogs, and he went and balanced the scales, and plaintiff drove on elev.en hogs and weighed them; then eight more, (one having been sold per caput,

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Bluebook (online)
42 N.W. 713, 26 Neb. 537, 1889 Neb. LEXIS 161, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/filley-v-billings-neb-1889.