Marsh v. Orville Carr Associates, Inc.

433 S.W.2d 928, 1968 Tex. App. LEXIS 2316
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 16, 1968
Docket14703
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 433 S.W.2d 928 (Marsh v. Orville Carr Associates, Inc.) 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
Marsh v. Orville Carr Associates, Inc., 433 S.W.2d 928, 1968 Tex. App. LEXIS 2316 (Tex. Ct. App. 1968).

Opinion

KLINGEMAN, Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment non obstante veredicto entered in favor of Orville Carr Associates, Inc., hereinafter called Carr, against Mayme Sue Marsh, hereinafter called Mrs. Marsh, in a suit on a sworn account to recover the purchase price of merchandise sold to Mrs. Marsh by Carr.

Mrs. Marsh had leased an apartment in Olmos Towers, a new high-rise apartment building in San Antonio, in July, 1965, to be effective upon completion of construction approximately in February, 1966. She desired to furnish said apartment. Carr is an interior decorating firm, and sometime in November, 1965, Mrs. Marsh went to the Carr studios and became particularly interested in a French armoire on display. Although she did not purchase such item on her first visit, she subsequently returned and arrangements were made with Mr. Jerry Stewart, an interior *930 decorator associated with Carr, to furnish and decorate Mrs. Marsh’s Olmos Tower apartment. On December 16, 1965, Mrs. Marsh deposited $2,000.00 with Carr to be applied on merchandise to be sold and delivered to her on account. Thereafter, over a period of several months, various items of furniture, draperies, and other household accessories, including the French ar-moire, were purchased by Mrs. Marsh, and most of such items were delivered in April, 1966, when Mrs. Marsh moved into her apartment, although certain items were ordered and never delivered. During the latter part of April, 1966, a bill was sent to Mrs. Marsh by Carr and subsequently other bills were rendered to Mrs. Marsh but no payments were made thereon. Sometime prior to June 22, 1966, Mrs. Marsh decided to move out of such Olmos apartment, which Carr became aware of, and on June 22, 1966, Carr sent Mr. Stewart to Mrs. Marsh’s apartment and requested payment in full or return of the merchandise. Upon Mrs. Marsh’s refusal to pay such account, Stewart prepared and presented to Mrs. Marsh a note giving Carr permission to remove “its merchandise” from her apartment and Mrs. Marsh signed it. Thereafter, with minor exceptions, chiefly wall paper and other affixed items, all of the merchandise was removed from Mrs. Marsh’s apartment and placed in Carr’s warehouse where it has remained, with the exception of various items which were sold by Carr.

Only one Special Issue was submitted to the jury, to-wit:

“QUESTION NO. 1
Do yoq find from a preponderance of the evidence that the Plaintiff, ORVILLE CARR ASSOCIATES, INC., by its conduct agreed to a rescission, as that term is defined herein, of the sale?
Answer ‘Plaintiff did agree’ or ‘Plaintiff did not agree’.
We, the jury answer: Plaintiff did agree.
In connection with the foregoing question, you are instructed that the term ‘rescission’ means ‘the undoing of a thing’ and the placing of the parties to it in status quo. You are further instructed that the consent of the parties to the rescission of a sale of property may be implied from acts or conduct with reference to their dealings with the property, and need not be shown by an express agreement.”

No objection to such special issue was made by Carr.

By her first and second points of error Mrs. Marsh asserts that the trial court erred in granting judgment non obstante veredicto because there was sufficient evidence to support the submission of such special issue and to support the jury’s answer thereto.

To support the action of a trial court in granting a judgment non obstante veredicto “it must be determined that there is no evidence on which the jury could have made the findings relied upon. In acting upon such motion all testimony must be considered in a light most favorable to the party against whom the motion is sought and every reasonable intendment deducible from the evidence is to be indulged in such party’s favor.” Leyva v. Pacheco, 163 Tex. 638, 358 S.W.2d 547 (1962); Green v. Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n, 339 S.W.2d 368 (Tex.Civ.App.—Texarkana 1960, writ ref’d n. r. e.); Zachry v. McKown, 326 S.W.2d 227 (Tex.Civ.App.—Austin 1959, writ ref’d n. r. e.).

Carr maintains that the trial court did not err in granting judgment non obstante veredicto because there was no evidence to support either the submission of such special issue to the jury or the jury’s answer thereto. It further asserts that as a matter of law the defense of rescission was not available to Mrs. Marsh because the undisputed evidence shows that the parties could not have been restored to their original status quo.

*931 “The rescission of a contract by mutual consent does not require a formal agreement or release, but may result from any act or any course of conduct of the parties which clearly indicates their mutual understanding that the contract is abrogated or terminated, or from the acquiescence of one party in its explicit repudiation by the other.” 2 Black, Rescission and Cancellation, § 528, p. 1244. “The consent of parties to the rescission of a contract may be implied from the circumstances of the case and from their dealings with reference to the subject matter of the contract, and need not be shown by an express agreement. Thus, for instance, if the seller of goods receives back the property sold and retains it, without objection and without notifying the buyer that he refuses to accept it or that he will hold it subject to his order or as his property, his consent to a rescission of the sale will be presumed.” Black, supra, § 526, p. 1240. “When goods have been delivered to the buyer under a contract of sale, and he returns them to the seller, and the latter accepts the redelivery, and resumes and retains possession of the property as his own, and does not notify the buyer that he intends to hold it subject to his order or sell it for his account, the transaction operates as a complete rescission of the contract of sale. And it appears to be immaterial, in respect to the application of this rule, whether the purchaser assigns any reasons for returning the goods, or what his specified reasons may be, * * *. For his return of the goods is an offer of rescission, and the acceptance and retention of them by the seller is an acceptance of that offer, and thereupon a rescission is effected, not necessarily for legally sufficient cause, but by the mutual consent of the parties. * * * As to the conduct of the seller in a transaction of this kind, it is not necessary that he should explicitly consent to a rescission of the contract. It is enough if he retains the property returned to him without giving the buyer any notice that he does not accept it or will not resume ownership. Nor is it necessary that the buyer should take the initiative. The same effect of a rescission follows if the seller takes possession of the property claiming it as his own, without objection from the purchaser, * * *. ” Black, supra, § 531, pp. 1251-52. In Lynch Davidson & Co. v. Denman Lumber Co., 270 S.W.

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433 S.W.2d 928, 1968 Tex. App. LEXIS 2316, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/marsh-v-orville-carr-associates-inc-texapp-1968.