Ingram v. Carlton Lumber Co.

152 P. 256, 77 Or. 633, 1915 Ore. LEXIS 162
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 22, 1915
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 152 P. 256 (Ingram v. Carlton Lumber Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ingram v. Carlton Lumber Co., 152 P. 256, 77 Or. 633, 1915 Ore. LEXIS 162 (Or. 1915).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Burnett

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an action instituted against three defendant corporations, charging them jointly under the Employers’ Liability Act for injuries received by plain[635]*635tiff while working for them upon their lumber-yard. The employment was admitted hy the answer, hut all the allegations of the complaint imputing negligence or any act of commission or omission operating to the hurt of the plaintiff were traversed. In the affirmative the answer set forth the following:

“That on the twenty-fourth day of March, 1914, the said plaintiff made a claim against these defendants on account of said accident, and that on said day the said Carlton Fir Lumber Company paid to the said plaintiff the sum of $150 in full and agreed satisfaction of the disputed claim growing out of the accident that happened to said Ingram mentioned in the said complaint on the tenth day of March, 1914, which is the accident referred to herein, satisfying in full all the claims of this plaintiff for bodily injuries on account of said accident on account of which these defendants might be legally liable, or on account of which either one of them might he liable, and in consideration of the said sum of $150 said plaintiff did release and forever discharge said Carlton Fir Lumber Company, its successors and assigns, from any and all actions or causes of action, claims or demands of the said plaintiff on account of any damage, loss or injury that was suffered or sustained on account of said accident and injury, which is the same injury referred to in said complaint, and that the said claim of the said plaintiff has been settled, satisfied, compromised and discharged, and the said plaintiff has executed to these defendants and each of them a full and complete satisfaction and release, and that said claim of plaintiff alleged herein has been fully paid, satisfied and discharged.”

In respect to this defense the reply admits the payment of $150, but otherwise denies the allegation of release, and then goes on to state as follows:

“Affirmatively this plaintiff avers that about the twenty-fourth day of March, 1914, the defendants [636]*636represented to plaintiff and told him that they would pay and did pay him for his loss of time caused by the injuries complained of herein, and that plaintiff accepted whatever sums were paid him as payment for his said lost time, and not in satisfaction for his injuries; that the plaintiff thereupon signed a document, which he was informed and believed was a receipt for payment for his lost time as herein alleged; that the contents of said instrument were never explained to plaintiff to be for a complete, or other satisfaction for his injuries, or at all; that if the said instrument purports to be a release of the matters and things involved in this cause, such instrument was procured from the plaintiff by the defendants through misrepresentation and deceit, as herein alleged, and the minds of the plaintiff and defendant never met upon the alleged and purported agreement set up in the second affirmative answer of the defendant. ’ •

1. The. reply is' insufficient in the new matter for several reasons. It does not state that the document mentioned therein was the release relied upon by the defendant. Further, while he said “he was informed and believed that the paper was a receipt for payment for Ms lost time as herein alleged,” he does not state by whom that information and belief was imparted, whether by the defendants or anyone acting for them, or not. Again, it is said “that the contents of said instrument were never explained to plaintiff to be a complete, or other satisfaction for his injuries, or at all.” No fact is stated making it the duty of the defendants to explain the paper or its contents. No false representation is imputed to them, and no effort to hoodwink or deceive plaintiff is mentioned. This court has laid down the precept in Leavengood v. McGee, 50 Or. 233, 239 (91 Pac. 453, 456), in this language :

[637]*637“The rule is that the facts upon which fraud is predicated must be specifically pleaded. A mere general averment of fraud is nothing but the averment of a conclusion, and will not suffice. It presents no issue for trial, and is bad on demurrer. Such an averment not only renders the bill or complaint demurrable, but it will not even sustain a decree”: 20 Cyc. 734; Leasure v. Forquer, 27 Or. 334 (41 Pac. 665).

Construing a pleading in Anderson v. Adams, 43 Or. 621, 627 (74 Pac. 215, 217), Mr. Chief Justice Moore enunciates the principle in these words:

“To constitute a fraud by false representations, so as to entitle the plaintiff to relief, three things must concur: (1) There must be a knowingly false representation; (2) the plaintiff must have believed it to be true, relied thereon, and have been deceived thereby; and (3) that such representation was of matter relating to the contract about which the representation was made which if true, would have been to the plaintiff’s advantage, but, being false, caused him damage and injury.”

The principle is reiterated and the cases reviewed by Mr. Justice Ramsey in McFarland v. Carlsbad Sanitorium Co., 68 Or. 530 (137 Pac. 209, Ann. Cas. 1915C, 555). Thus tested, the reply fails to assign a reason sufficient to release the plaintiff from the writing he executed.

Finally, the new matter of the reply is an effort to plead a rescission of the contract, but does not show that as a part thereof the plaintiff has even offered to return the money he received. The views of the writer on that subject, with the authorities, are set forth in the dissenting opinion in Foster v. University Library Co., 65 Or. 46, 67 (131 Pac. 736). The plaintiff himself testified that he signed the following writing:

[638]*638“Carlton, Ore., March 24 — 14.
“I, Harry Ingram, a bachelor, twenty-two years of age, and of sound mind, do hereby release and forever • discharge the Carlton Fir Lumber Company, for and in consideration of $150, from any and all claims arising or to arise from or on account of the injury sustained by me on or about March 10, 1914, at the plant of the Carlton Fir Lumber Company at Carlton, Ore.
"[ Signed] Harry Ingram. ’ ’

The plaintiff had a common school education and could read and write. The instrument fixed the rights of the contracting parties unless the same is set aside on account of fraud or some like reason properly pleaded. Without averring some mental defect disqualifying him to make a contract, or some fraud or deceit practiced upon him by the defendants, it will not avail him to allege merely that he did not understand the document in question. Above all, having profited by the transaction, common honesty, which lays its injunction alike upon the learned and unlearned, the rich and the poor, requires that accompanying the rescission he should return the benefit derived from the contract before trying to get more out of the defendants. What is here stated about the plaintiff’s duty to return the money paid to him on the alleged release is the opinion of the writer in which some other members of the court participating in the hearing of this case do not concur.

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Bluebook (online)
152 P. 256, 77 Or. 633, 1915 Ore. LEXIS 162, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ingram-v-carlton-lumber-co-or-1915.