Mossler Acceptance Co. v. Tips

289 S.W.2d 295, 1956 Tex. App. LEXIS 2541
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 29, 1956
DocketNo. 12956
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 289 S.W.2d 295 (Mossler Acceptance Co. v. Tips) 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
Mossler Acceptance Co. v. Tips, 289 S.W.2d 295, 1956 Tex. App. LEXIS 2541 (Tex. Ct. App. 1956).

Opinion

GANNON, Justice.

Mossier Acceptance Company, which was defendant below, appeals from a money judgment against it in favor of appellee, J. C. Tips, III, plaintiff below, in amount of $11,028.80, plus $500 attorney’s fees, interest and costs. Judgment followed a jury trial in which the single issue submitted to the jury was:

“What do you find from a preponderance of the evidence to be the present balance, if any, due and owing to J. C. Tips, III, from Mossier Acceptance Company after the allowance of all proper offsets, credits and payments, if any, shown by a preponderance of the evidence to exist in favor of either party?”

The jury’s answer to this issue was, “Eleven Thousand Twenty-eight and 80/100 ($11,028.80) Dollars.”

The case was filed, improperly, we think, as a suit on sworn account. Defendant answered by sworn denial and later during the course of the trial by trial amendment wherein defendant set up its right to cer[296]*296tain offsets, credits and payments against the claims of plaintiff. The proceedings then turned into an accounting suit involving many items of debit and credit between the parties, arising out of their long course of dealing with each other. On this appeal, in reliance on its unsuccessful motion for judgment non obstante veredicto, the sole point urged by appellant is the entire want of any competent evidence to sustain-a series of credits claimed by plaintiff, all being in the nature of deferred contingent payments. These had been set up by defendant on its books, which were introduced in evidence.

Plaintiff is a dealer in secondhand automobiles. Defendant is a finance company engaged in the business of financing loans to purchasers of automobiles. The dealings between the, parties on which the appeal arises may be understood from the following :

Plaintiff Tips would sell automobiles to various purchasers for a purchase price, payable partly in cash and partly on credit in deferred monthly payments. The unpaid part of the purchase price would be evidenced by notes secured by chattel mortgages on the automobiles denominated by the parties’ conditional sales contracts. The principal of the notes would include, in addition to the unpaid purchase money, financing and insurance charges. For many years, plaintiff would sell these notes to defendant for cash in the full amount of the unpaid purchase money only. Insurance premiums would be advanced by the defendant and the amount of the notes representing the premiums and finance charges would be collected and retained by defendant for its own reimbursement and for the use of its money. About 1951, the market for secondhand automobiles became shaky and went on the downgrade. Defendant then became unwilling to purchase the paper — for sums absolutely payable — in the full amount of the unpaid purchase price of the automobile, but was willing, in respect to a part of such unpaid purchase price, to bind itself only upon certain contingencies. The parties differ in their testimony in respect to the exact provisions of their agreement in regard to these contingencies, but the jury accepted plaintiff’s version, and a statement of plaintiff’s contentions in respect thereto will suffice for this appeal. Plaintiff testified to a series of transactions relied upon by him, some 350 in number, of which the first is fully illustrative, to-wit: the sale by him to defendant of the conditional sale9 contract representing, in addition to insurance and finance charges, $550 of unpaid purchase money due by Jesse B. Anderson on the sale by plaintiff to Jesse B. Anderson of a secondhand automobile. In this particular transaction, the unpaid purchase money was $550. There was added to this unpaid purchase money insurance and finance charges in the amount of $233, and the conditional sales contract was executed for a total face amount of $783. Prior to the Amdersqn transaction, on -a sale of such paper to defendant by plaintiff, plaintiff would be paid therefor the sum of $550 in cash; but, in the Jesse B. Anderson transaction, because of the doubtful value of the security, the parties agreed orally that plaintiff would assign the Anderson conditional sales contract to defendant and in consideration thereof defendant would pay to plaintiff in cash at the time of the transfer, not $550, the full amount of the unpaid purchase money, but only the sum of $500. However, defendant contingently agreed to pay to plaintiff some months later, in this instance February 5, 1952, the sum'of $50; provided the car had not been repossessed by defendant prior to that time. If, prior to the due date of the contingently deferred payment of $50 defendant had repossessed the car, then the understanding was that if defendant should notify plaintiff of that fact in writing and give the plaintiff the opportunity to purchase the car for the amount of the unpaid balance of the paper, and plaintiff should elect to make such purchase, the deferred $50 would become absolutely payable at the time agreed upon, but subject to the further understanding that if plaintiff, on such written notice, should elect not to purchase the paper within three days after notice, that fact would [297]*297defeat his right to the $50 deferred payment. Plaintiff further testified it was the understanding that if the car had not been repossessed before the due date of the deferred payment, such payment was to be absolutely due.

As above stated, plaintiff testified to a series of several hundred transactions essentially the same as the Anderson note transaction, and to the fact that although the dates upon which the deferred payments in such transactions came due had passed without plaintiff’s receiving any notice of repossession from defendant, so that such payments became absolutely due and payable, still the defendant had failed and refused to make such payments. The exact total of the items is not important, but the figure is recited in appellant’s brief to be in excess of $12,000, and it is apparently conceded that the total of these items is a figure in excess of the answer of the jury, finding defendant indebted to plaintiff in the amount of $11,028.80.

According to plaintiff, each transaction was separately negotiated, plaintiff agreeing to assign the various conditional sales contracts in consideration of defendant’s agreement to pay for same in part immediately and in cash, and in part in the future', contingent on the understandings above set out. It is undisputed in the evidence that in executing the oral agreements plaintiff would assign the conditional sales contracts to defendant in writing, sometimes with full recourse and sometimes with partial recourse only, or sometimes without recourse, and that contemporaneously defendant would issue to plaintiff its check for the amount of the cash payment the parties agreed upon as being immediately payable. In each instance there was attached to these checks a stub, of which the following is typical:

The $500 figure shown under Distribution in the check stub represents the amount of the check, or cash, paid by defendant to plaintiff for the paper at the time of its sale. The credits of $233 and $50, respectively, represent insurance and ■ finance charges and, as is plainly indicated, the deferred payment, which, in the instance of Jesse B. Anderson sale, was payable contingently, of course, on February 5, 1952.

When plaintiff offered these check stubs in evidence, in corroboration of and as a guide to his testimony, defendant objected on the ground (a) That the contract of assignment (of the conditional sales contract) would be the best evidence of the agreement between the parties.

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Bluebook (online)
289 S.W.2d 295, 1956 Tex. App. LEXIS 2541, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mossler-acceptance-co-v-tips-texapp-1956.