Kiehn v. Willmann

218 S.W. 15, 1919 Tex. App. LEXIS 1318
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 4, 1919
DocketNo. 7760.
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 218 S.W. 15 (Kiehn v. Willmann) 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
Kiehn v. Willmann, 218 S.W. 15, 1919 Tex. App. LEXIS 1318 (Tex. Ct. App. 1919).

Opinion

LANE, J.

This suit was instituted by E. W. Kiehn, appellant, against the appellee, R. J. Willmann, to set aside a deed of conveyance from appellant to appellee to 161.9 acres of land situated in Fayette county, Tex., and to cancel a certain note for $1,200, executed by appellant and payable to appellee.

The cause of action as alleged by appellant is substantially: That appellee traded appellant three sets of vendor’s lien notes, aggregating the sum of $6,600, and some accrued interest, for appellant’s tract of 161.9 acres of land, which was valued at $8,850, but was incumbered by an indebtedness of $3,350, the payment of which appellee assumed. For the difference between appellant’s equity in the tract of land and the aggregate amount *16 of appellee’s vendor’s lien notes, with accrued interest, appellant gave appellee his personal note for $1,200, secured by one set of the vendor’s lien notes so traded him by appellee. The notes traded appellant by appellee were secured by the vendor’s lien against certain lands and lots situated in Pecos, Dinunitt, and Hardeman counties.

Reduced to the ultimate, the complaint of appellant, as alleged in his original petition, is that the appellee knowingly and willfully, and for the purpose of deceiving and robbing him of his property, fraudulently represented to him that said notes traded to him were good notes, that they were well secured, that the payments recited in the deed retaining the vendor’s liens had been made, and that the notes were gilt-edged; but that such representations were false and untrue, and were known- to be false by appellee when made; that the security, instead of being good as represented, was practically worthless and grossly inadequate, and that said notes were not good, well-secured, gilhedged notes, but were practically worthless; but that appellant, believing such representations to be true, relied thereon and was thereby defrauded by appellee of his land and property and induced to execute and deliver to ap-pellee the note for $1,200, and that he has been actually demaged in the sum of $6,500; and, further, that, by reason of the oppression and deceitful misrepresentations of appellee, he demands the sum of $1,000 as punitory damages; that he tenders into court, and to appellee, the notes received by him from ap-pellee, and then prays relief from the court as follows:

“That the deed executed by this plaintiff through and on account of the fraudulent representations of the said defendant on the 31st day of January, 1916, and recorded in volume 101, pp. 50-51, of the Deed Records of Fayette county, shall be canceled, annulled, and held for naught, and the title of said lapd be divested out of the defendant, R. ,T. Willmann, and be reinvested in this plaintiff; and, further, that the defendant be commanded to deliver into this court this plaintiff’s notes executed in part payment for said notes, and that the same he canceled and annulled and hold for naught; and that, if the defendant herein have in any way disposed of said note, then he asks for judgment against the defendant for the amount of said notes, with the same rate of interest which said note bears, and he asks for all such other relief, whether the same be legal or equitable, which he may be entitled to under the facts herein pleaded and proven in this cause, for costs of suit and general relief, for all of which he will ever pray.”

Appellee answered by general denial and by special plea in bar of appellant’s right of rescission of the contract between the parties, as follows:

“This defendant, R. J. Willmann, further represents and shows to the court that plaintiff is not in a position in this case to invoke the equitable powers of this court, and is estopped from doing so, for the reason that this defendant says that if the securities transferred and assigned by him to plaintiff as alleged in plaintiff’s petition are worthless securities, and that said notes were given for land and lots of inferior value and worth far less than the amount of said notes, this defendant charges that such fact became- known to plaintiff long before the institution of this suit, and that plaintiff received the information alleged by him to have been received, and whether true or false, such irtformation was believed by plaintiff to be true; and that after plaintiff ascertained that said securities from his point of view were inadequate ánd worthless this defendant charges that plaintiff, in an endeavor to impose upon others, offered said securities for sale, and endeavored to sell said securities for áeir face value, and hence defendant says that plaintiff does not come into this court with clean hands, but comes tainted with an effort to commit fraud, and hence is estopped from asking equity of the court; and defendant here now pleads in bar of plaintiff’s right to ask that the deed to said land made to this defendant be set aside and held for naught, and that the note executed by plaintiff to this defendant be canceled and held for naught, and asking for a rescission of the entire contract, the principle of estoppel in bar of any right in plaintiff to ask equity in this cause, and by offering said notes for sale said plaintiff has elected to accept said property, and being aware of all the facts relating to said securities he waived the right to the rescission of said contract of sale.
“Defendant further avers that if there was any fraud practiced upon plaintiff as averred, or if there was any reason why said sale should have been rescinded, which defendant does not confess, but denies, then he says that after plaintiff became aware of such and believed same to be true, or after he had information concerning same which put him upon inquiry, which inquiry, if pursued, would have disclosed all facts concerning the property in question, plaintiff, by his own acts, elected to accept the properties passed to him and to treat the properties passed to defendant as being defendant’s, and had transactions with defendant concerning same, and waived his right to rescind said sale, if any he had, and is now forever estopped from seeking a rescission of said sale at the hands of this court.”

He prayed that his title to the property in controversy be quieted.

By what is styled plaintiff’s second supplemental petition, appellant alleged that in his contract with appellee he (appellee) was to pay the accrued interest on the $3,350 note, the payment of which was assumed by appel-lee; that said accrued interest amounted to $190 or $200; that he paid appellee $167 to pay said accrued interest, and that appellee expended the same for his own use and benefit and did not pay said accrued interest as he had agreed to do; that as no interest had been paid on the note suit was instituted thereon by the holder thereof, and by reason of such suit appellant’s liability was increased $250 as attorney’s fees; and that by reason of the refusal of appellee to reconvey *17 to Mm Ms land lie had been, damaged in the further sum of $500. In this supplemental petition he prayed for judgment for the $167 paid by him to appellee for the purpose of paying accrued interest, and for such other damages as he had sustained, in addition to the relief prayed for in his original petition.

The cause was submitted to a jury upon special issues, and in response thereto they, in effect, made the following answers:

1. R. J. Willmann did represent to E. W.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Lamoyne v. Parks
295 S.W.2d 917 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1956)
Granberry v. McBride
138 S.W.2d 283 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1940)
First Nat. Bank of Knox City v. Boyd
75 S.W.2d 928 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1934)
Minneapolis-Moline Power Implement Co. v. Gatzki
57 S.W.2d 593 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1933)
Texas Cotton Co-Op. Ass'n v. Lennox
37 S.W.2d 331 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1931)
Moncrief v. Miller
14 S.W.2d 227 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1929)
Oak Cliff Ice Delivery Co. v. Peterson
300 S.W. 107 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1927)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
218 S.W. 15, 1919 Tex. App. LEXIS 1318, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kiehn-v-willmann-texapp-1919.