Local Building & Loan Ass'n v. Hudson-Houston Lumber Co.

1931 OK 369, 3 P.2d 156, 150 Okla. 44, 1931 Okla. LEXIS 276
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedJune 23, 1931
Docket19791
StatusPublished
Cited by35 cases

This text of 1931 OK 369 (Local Building & Loan Ass'n v. Hudson-Houston Lumber Co.) 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
Local Building & Loan Ass'n v. Hudson-Houston Lumber Co., 1931 OK 369, 3 P.2d 156, 150 Okla. 44, 1931 Okla. LEXIS 276 (Okla. 1931).

Opinion

SWINDALL, J.

This is an appeal by a plaintiff from a judgment in favor of an intervener. In the lower court, the inter-vener was practically a plaintiff and the plaintiff a defendant under the intervention petition. The action was a foreclosure suit in which the defendant in error intervened to recover $1,386.52 which it claimed to have deposited with the mortgagee, the plaintiff in error, to be applied in payment of the amount of interest required to put certain loans in good standing, on condition that the intervener, u ho held a junior mortgage, obtained title to the premises from the mortgagors, one of whom, a Mrs. Harlow, was then very ill. The issue was whether the deposit was conditional or whether, as the plaintiff contended, an actual payment made with the understanding that it would not be at once so credited on the books,' the intention being not to permit the mortgagors to have the benefit of the credit should they sell the premises to some other person, and in such event to require them to pay the indebtedness without having the advantage of the credit. The plaintiff also contended that the intervener was estopped to deny the payment because of inducing the plaintiff to delay instituting foreclosure proceedings by its acquiescence in the distribution of the money to the various loans after it had been notified that such distribution had been made.

When the intervener rested, the plaintiff demurred to the evidence, but when the demurrer was overruled, it did not stajid on the demurrer but proceeded to introduce evidence in its. defense. At' the close of the evidence the plaintiff did not move for a directed verdict, but special instructions were given and the jury returned a verdict for the intervener for the amount claimed.

In the brief the plaintiff in error groups all assignments of error under two general heads, one being that the judgment and verdict are net sustained by ai"- evidence, and the other being that the evidence upon the question of estoppel is uncontradicted, and not inherently improbable, either in itself or in connection with any other circumstance, and that the facts being undisputed, that question shortd not have been submitted to the jury; and, on the matter of claimed estoppel, it urges the further claim that, since the question was submitted to the jury, they evidently disregarded the instructions, and that for that reason the verdict should be se.t aside. All these objections reduce themselves to the matter of the existence of, and the weight of the evidence.

A cursory examination of the evidence indicates that it was the intention when the money was remitted to the plaintiff that the intervener would take over the premises from the mortgagors, but this was not done because one of them, Mrs. Harlow, later refused to convey. , Later, there was an effort to have the loans refinanced by the plaintiff, and there was correspondence as to the amount due. In one letter the plaintiff referred to the money as paid. In a later letter, it expressly referred to the fact that the money had been distributed to the loans, that letter reciting that the money had been held in suspense until a certain date and then distributed. There was evidence that Mr. Hudson, representing the intervener, asked the plaintiff’s representative about that, and was assured that it was only a matter of form and 'that the deposit was still in the hands of the plaintiff, but that conversation was denied.

The plaintiff strongly urges that a letter from Mr. Hudson, indicating an understanding that it was the intention to have the plaintiff refinance the loans, shows conclusively that it was not the understanding that the money was deposited subject to the in-tervener’s obtaining title to the premises, but that letter was written several months after the making of the deposit, and it was, to some extent at least, offset by a letter from Mr. Brewer, the manager of the plaintiff, after the foreclosure was instituted, in which, although he insisted that the money had been paid to avert foreclosure, he admitted that the reason for its having been put into a special account was the necessity of getting some papers signed by Mrs. Harlow.

The intervener insists that, since the plaintiff did not move for an instructed verdict, it cannot now complain as to the sufficiency or weight of the evidence. The intervener is squarely supported in its contention by the case of Abraham v. Gelw'ck, 123 Okla. 248, 253 Pac. 84, the fourth syllabus p'ara-graph of which reads as follows:

“Where the defendant demurs to the evidence in chief of the plaintiff and defendant afterwards introduces evidence, and thereafter plaintiff introduces further evidence, and in rebuttal, and the defendant fails to renew his demurrer to all the evidence, or request an instructed verdict, and permits the issues joined to be submitted to the jury upon all the evidence without objection and exception, the verdict on review in this court is conclusive so far as such evidence is con *46 cerned, except as to excessive damages, appearing- to Lave been given under the influence of passion or prejudice.”

The plaintiff insists that it can still urge the error, if any, committed in overruling its demurrer to the evidence, on the theory that the evidence which it later introduced was merely negative. The plaintiff in error than urges the frequent statement of the rule in the alternative as impliedly indicating that in all cases either procedure is sufficient, and that error in overruling- a demurrer to evidence can be urged even though no motion for a directed verdict is made, citing cases in which the rule is laid down, to the effect that where a. party neither demurs to the evidence nor moves for a directed verdict, the evidence will not be reviewed. That contention was overridden by the opinion in Abraham v. Gel-wick, supra, in which the court considered the fact that a demurrer had been interposed, and conceded that if the demurrant had introduced no evidence, it could still have been urged on appeal, but held that since the demurrant went ahead and put on his evidence and did not move for a directed verdict upon all the evidence in the case, the sufficiency of the evidence would not be considered. It seems that there are two jurisdictions, Colorado and Washington, where, in cases not cited by appellant, it was held that error in overruling a demurrer to the evidence could be urged even though the demurrant went ahead and put in his case, if his evidence did not sup'ply the insufficiency, but that rule is opposed to the great weight of authority, and the true rule, and the reason for it, seem to have been aptly expressed by the United States Supreme Court in the language appearing in the following extract:

“The trial took place before a jury, and Hie assignments of error relate to the rul-ines of the court made in the course of .such trial. We proceed to consider them in their order.
“1. That the court erred in overruling the defendant’s motion for a nonsuit. In this connection, the bill of exceptions shows that the plaintiffs put in evidence the deeds from Bogk and wife to the plaintiffs, the agreement to reconvey, the lease with oral testimony of the rental value, and then rested.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1931 OK 369, 3 P.2d 156, 150 Okla. 44, 1931 Okla. LEXIS 276, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/local-building-loan-assn-v-hudson-houston-lumber-co-okla-1931.