Fipps v. Stidham

1935 OK 855, 50 P.2d 680, 174 Okla. 473, 1935 Okla. LEXIS 1276
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedSeptember 25, 1935
DocketNo. 23715.
StatusPublished
Cited by38 cases

This text of 1935 OK 855 (Fipps v. Stidham) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fipps v. Stidham, 1935 OK 855, 50 P.2d 680, 174 Okla. 473, 1935 Okla. LEXIS 1276 (Okla. 1935).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

On September 22, 1931, this action in replevin was brought in the county court of Dewey county by Dennis Stid-ham, the defendant in error, against W. R. Eipps, the plaintiff in error, and John F. Haffner for the possession of personal property given as security for the payment of a ¡promissory note in the sum of $G04.20 and for damages. The parties will be hereinafter referred to as they were designated in the trial court. Th defendant John E. Haffner did not appeal and is not a necessary party to the (appeal.

In due time the defendant Eipps filed his verified answer generally and specifically denying indebtedness to the plaintiff on August 4, 1931, the date of the note and mortgage, and at any other time, and to the bank of which plaintiff was then the vice president, and that plaintiff was an innocent purchaser of the alleged note and mortgage; alleging that plaintiff 'well knew all of the facts and circumstances concerning the transaction out of which it is claimed said matters arose; pleading failure of consideration and praying fen- damages in the sum of $1,000 for wrongful bringing of the action. To which answer plaintiff filed his reply denying generally and specifically the allegations in defendant’s answer 'and specially pleading that the defendant is es-topped to urge the .note and the mortgage were given without consideration, for the reason that the note was the last of a series of notes given to the Dewey County State Bank covering the same security and was ¿iven in payment of a former note upon the same indebtedness and for the same consideration.

On trial of the cause to the court, after the introduction of plaintiff’s testimony to establish his note and mortgage and his right to prevail, the evidence on the part of the defense discloses that, on or about August 27, 1927, the defendant Eipps purchased a tract of land through the Dewey County State Bank and its officials, N. Stidham and Gordon Stidham, for a consideration of $8,000, 'assuming as a part of said consideration a $3,000 mortgage to the School Land Commission and a second mortgage in the sum of $500 payable to Mae Wanzer, and giving in payment of the balance notes as follows i To the First National Bank in Taloga the sums of $900 and $1,500 and to Gordon Stidham the sums of $1,050, $600, and $450, in all five notes totaling the sum of $4,500.

On or 'about March 1, 1930, said defendant through the Dewey County State Bank And its said officers sold the same tract of land for the sum of $8,000, taking as part payment therefor chattels at an agreed price of $1,200 and a farm valued in the trade at the sum of $3,500', the Dewey County State Bank and its said officials retaining the balance of the purchase price in the sum of $3,300.

Further evidence on behalf of the defendant discloses that all of the records, canceled vouchers, and instruments concerning ¡hese two transactions were retained and kept by the said bank and its officials; that the plaintiff, for a considerable portion of the time between the two transactions and after-wards, was an active officer of the bank and in position to know all about these transactions, and with Gordon Stidham and N. Stidham interested himself in the same, and *475 more particularly with the defendant; that the defendant, a man lacking In education, was unable to read, write, and compute well enough to ascertain for himself 'as to just how matters stood in the two transactions, had confidence and faith in the Stidhams and their Dewey County State Bank, 'and relying on them and the hank and their Integrity paid out to and through the hank and the Stidhams the total sum of $9,247.53 on obligations which could not have exceeded the sum of $9,295.93, including interest. Of these sums the original debits due Gordon Stidham, and later partially involved in the assets of the bank, totaled the sum of $2,-289, and including the school land loan of $3,000 and its increase of $500, which was to be paid off by and through the bank and the Stidhams for the defendant, was the sum of $5,789, fon which total obligation of the defendant the State Bank and Stidhams received payments and cash in the total sum of $6,880.74; that after the purchase and the sale and before the last payments of the defendant in the total sum of $336.70, the Dewey County State Bank obtained the signature of the defendant to a note in the sum of $850, which ;was later renewed for the sum of $750, and again renewed by another note In the sum of $604.20. This last note was purchased from the State Bank by the plaintiff, Dennis Stidham, because 'as he expressed it the bank examiners criticised the loan, and was renewed by the defendant by executing a new note and mortg'age in a like amount, and which note and mortgage 'are in issue in the suit. That these two transactions, the purchase and the sale, constitute the only borrowings of the defendant from the State Bank or any of its officers.

That the plaintiff was In and around the bank when the defendant was there on the business of the two deals, and talked to the defendant and others both in and out of the bank about matters growing out of these two deals; that the papers, vouchers, data, and. documents concerning these two deals were held where Gordon Stidham said it would be safer than ;with the defendant, and it was after the Stidhams were no longer connected with the bank and after the bringing of this suit that the defendant received his canceled notes, checks, and papers in these matters from the bank and was enabled to have the debits and credits computed. Prior to this investigation the defendant believed that he was justly indebted te the Dewey County State Bank.

The plaintiff denied that he was familiar with the transactions the defendant had with his bank and the other two Stidhams, admitted being vice president of the bank for 'about two years of the time involved in this controversy, and as such made one collection for the bank from the defendant, and admits that on August 4, 1931, he valued the International farm tractor involved in the chattel mortgage at $400, which chattel, through the bank and its officials, had been negotiated to the defendant at a trade value of $1,200 in one of the deals less than a year and a half before. This testimony was not in rebuttal to the testimony introduced by the defendant.

The demurrer of the plaintiff to the defendant’s evidence was sustained, and judgment entered for the plaintiff.

The defendant W. E. Fipps brings this appeal.

The contention of the plaintiff that the trial court found for the plaintiff on the evidence and not on the plaintiff’s demurrer to the defendant’s evidence is not borne out by the record. The ruling of the court was not afterward disturbed, nor did the plaintiff request that it be set aside. It therefore stands as having been sustained.

It is a settled rule in this jurisdiction that a demurrer to the evidence admits all the facts which the evidence in the slightest degree tends to prove, 'and all the inferences and conclusions that may be- reasonably and logically drawn from the evidence. Wm. Cameron & Co. v. Henderson, 40 Okla. 648, 140 P. 404; Crow v. Crow, 40 Okla. 455, 139 P. 122.

And upon a demurrer to the evidence de-murree is entitled to every inference which the evidence, considered in the light most favorable to him, reasonably tends to prove. Anthony v. Bliss, 39 Okla. 237, 134 P. 1122.

On demurrer to the evidence, conflicting evidence cannot be weighed.

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Bluebook (online)
1935 OK 855, 50 P.2d 680, 174 Okla. 473, 1935 Okla. LEXIS 1276, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fipps-v-stidham-okla-1935.