Langdon v. Evans

14 D.C. 1
CourtDistrict of Columbia Court of Appeals
DecidedNovember 15, 1883
DocketNo. 11,960
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 14 D.C. 1 (Langdon v. Evans) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District of Columbia Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Langdon v. Evans, 14 D.C. 1 (D.C. 1883).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Hagner

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an action of replevin instituted by the plaintiff to obtain possession from the defendant of sundry chattels mentioned in the declaration, consisting of steam engines, composition kettles, asphalt, &c., &c., situated in the works of the Evans Paving and Artificial Stone Co., at 17th street, and on Easby’s wharf, in Washington, of the value of $15,-000. The property was, under the writ, delivered to the plaintiff. The defendant pleaded the general issue, and the jury found a verdict in favor of the defendant for $12,-500. To the rulings of the court at the trial, sundry exceptions were taken on the part of the plaintiff.

1st exception. The plaintiff, to support the issues on his part, read in evidence articles of agreement between the defendant and one Theodore A. Stratton, dated December 1, 1873, By the first paragraph, Evans contracted to sell to Stratton all that part of the business of the Evans Concrete Paving Company which was situated in the city of Washington, together with all the machinery, &c., and materials and the good will of the business, to be clear of incumbrances, at the price of $131,750, which was to be paid by the conveyance by Stratton to Evans of five parcels of land in the town of Montery, county of Berkshire, Mass., containing together 810 acres, with the appliances thereon for making maple sugar; the conveyances to contain general warranty of title. By the agreement it was further contracted that Evans was to sell to Stratton another lot of machinery, tools, materials, &c., and all the other personal property described in a schedule annexed, pertaining to the business known as the Evans Roofing and Paving Company, situated in the city of Brooklyn; to be free of incumbrances; and this Brooklyn property was to be paid for by the conveyance from Stratton to Evans of another piece of land in the same town in Massachusetts containing 723 acres. It [4]*4was further agreed that Stratton should promptly furnish the necessary material for finishing all uncompleted work in the city of Brooklyn and in the District of Columbia, previously contracted for by Evans; and for keeping in repair the work already finished. The plaintiff then read in evidence a bill of sale from Evans to Stratton, dated December 8, 18*73, transferring the business at Brooklyn and the machinery, &c., “as per schedule hereunto annexed and made part of this bill of saleand also another bill of sale from Evans to Stratton, dated December 5, 18*73, of all the machinery, material, &c., in the city of Washington, described in the agreement. “And in further support of said issues and to establish his title to the goods and chattels mentioned in the declaration,” he offered in evidence another bill of sale, from Stratton to the plaintiff Langdon, dated December 29, 18*73, in these words:

“For and in consideration of the sum of sixty thousand dollars to me in hand paid by Philando C. Langdon, and for other valuable considerations, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, I do hereby assign, transfer and set over unto the said Philando C. Langdon, his executors, administrators and assigns, the business at Brooklyn, Kings county, State of New York, and Washington, D. 0., known as the ‘Evans Concrete Paving Company,’ and the ‘Evans Boofing Company,’ with all the machinery, tools, implements and personal property, the same property which was conveyed, sold, delivered and transferred to me by Chas. E. Evans by'bill of sale dated the eighth day of December, A. D. 18*73, and which will more fully appear by the schedule annexed to the bill of sale made by said Evans, and which 'is made part of this bill of sale.”

To the'introduction in evidence of this paper writing, the defendant, by his counsel, objected, and the court sustained his objection; and this ruling constitutes the subject of the first exception.

In our opinion, this decision of the court was correct. The property which was the subject of this suit Avas situated in Washington, and was quite distinct from the personal prop[5]*5erty in Brooklyn. But the bill of sale so offered in evidence expressly declared that the property thereby conveyed was the same property which was conveyed, sold and transferred by Evans to Stratton by bill of sale of the 8th of December, 18*13, “and which will more fully appear by the schedule annexed to the bill of sale made by said Evans, and which is made part of this bill of sale." This bill of sale of the 8th of December, and the annexed schedule, comprehended only the Brooklyn property, and had no reference whatever to the personal property in Washington city. It was, therefore, irrelevant to the issue before the jury, since it could not conduce to prove that Stratton had conveyed the Washington property to Langdon. The construction of the paper was, of course, for the court; and we think no other interpretation could be given to it than that it related solely to the property in Brooklyn. It was insisted, however, that the plaintiff should have been allowed, as his counsel asserted he' could have done, to introduce testimony to show that it was designed by the parties that the bill of sale of December 29th should also convey the Washington property ; and the propriety of the admission of such parole evidence was claimed upon the ground that a latent ambiguity existed in the paper which could thus be made the subject of explanation. Even if this offer had been made at the trial below, which was not the case, we cannot see that the court could possibly have held that any latent ambiguity, authorizing such explanation, existed. The trouble with the plaintiff’s case was that the paper was too free from ambiguity ; for the reference to the property designed to be passed was so plain as not to admit of question. It was the Brooklyn property, and none other. An offer, then, to show that the Washington property had been referred to in the bill of sale, instead of the Brooklyn property, or that it should also have been included along with the other, would have been inadmissible under the plainest principles of law. The case is exactly within the decision of this court, in the case of Patch vs. White, 1 Mackey, 468, where we refused to allow the plaintiff in ejectment to introduce testimony to [6]*6show that a devise of “lot No. 6 in square 403,” should be read as a devise of “lot No. 3 in square 406.”

But the rejection of this evidence, even if erroneous, became immaterial in the further progress of the case, as the bill of sale objected to was subsequently read in evidence without objection.

2d exception. The plaintiff'then offered evidence tending to prove that, about the 30th of December, 1873, Stratton, being then in actual possession of all the property so conveyed to him by Evans, delivered to the plaintiff an inventory of the tools and materials of the Evans Concrete Co., on Seventeenth street, in the city of Washington, and at the same time gave him manual possession of said goods and chattels. After the witness had been turned over to the defendant for cross-examination, the plaintiff offered in evidence, during the' cross-examination of the witness (who was the plaintiff Langdon), as an estoppel, an exemplified copy of a record of the Supreme Court of New York for the county of Kings, in a cause there tried and determined, in which the plaintiff in this suit was plaintiff, and the defendant in this suit was defendant.

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Bluebook (online)
14 D.C. 1, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/langdon-v-evans-dc-1883.