Patton v. Coen & Ten Broeke C. M. Co.

3 Colo. 265
CourtSupreme Court of Colorado
DecidedApril 15, 1877
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 3 Colo. 265 (Patton v. Coen & Ten Broeke C. M. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Colorado primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Patton v. Coen & Ten Broeke C. M. Co., 3 Colo. 265 (Colo. 1877).

Opinion

Thatcher, C. J.

This is an action in assumpsit, brought by the defendant in error against the plaintiff in error, for the money claimed to be due to the Coen and Ten Broeke Carriage Manufacturing Company, for the use, etc., for a certain omnibus, lead bar, etc., sold and delivered by the defendant in error, to the plaintiff in error.

[266]*266The record shows that Patton, through Abbott, a salaried agent of the company, ordered of the company at Chicago, Illinois, in May, 1874, a certain omnibus, etc., of the value of $885, one-half to be paid in cash upon the receipt and acceptance of the omnibus, and the other half in sixty or ninety days, at the option of Patton, with interest at one per cent per month; that the omnibus, and other articles ordered, was shipped by the company, to Patton, in care of Abbott, June 17th, 1874, and were by Abbott received and delivered to Patton, June 29th, 1874; that on the 25th day of said month, at Central City, by an agreement between Abbott and Patton, Abbott receipted the bill for the same, and Patton drew his check for $440 and his note for $445, payable in ninety days, with interest at one per cent per month; the receipted bill, check and note were then deposited with J. S. Reynolds, cashier of the Rocky Mountain National Bank, with instructions to deliver to him, Patton, the receipted bill, and* to Abbott, the agent, the check and note, if, upon the arrival of the omnibus, Patton should find it according to order, and accept the same. The omnibus arrived June 29th, and was accepted by Patton. Reynolds then delivered note, check, and receipted bill according to instructions. June 17th, the company drew two drafts on Patton in favor of the First National Bank of Chicago, one for $440, payable at sight; the other for $445, payable sixty days after date, with interest at twelve per cent per annum ; and on the same day assigned its account against Patton to said bank by an indorsement on the back of the account. These two drafts were indorsed and transmitted to J. S. Reynolds, cashier, for collection, and presented to Patton for payment and acceptance ; the one he refused to pay, and the other to accept, for the reason that he had given the order to the agent for the omnibus, and that he intended to settle with him alone. June 27th, Patton received a telegram from the company requesting him to honor their drafts, and informing him that Abbott had no authority to collect for the company.

[267]*267This case was tried by the court without the' intervention of a jury, and judgment was rendered in favor of the plaintiff. No exception was reserved to the judgment. In the absence of such exception, the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth assignments of error, relating, as they do, to the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the judgment, cannot be considered by this court.

By express enactment (R. S., ch. 70, § 22), where the trial is to the court, “the party excepting may assign for error before the supreme court any decision or opinion so excepted to, whether such exception relates to receiving improper, or rejecting proper testimony, or to the final judgment of the court upon the law and evidence.”

While under this statute the failure of the party aggrieved to except to the final judgment at nisi prius precludes the appellate tribunal from reviewing such judgment upon the testimony adduced at the trial (Phelps v. Spruance, 1 Col. 415; Liss v. Wilcoxen, 2 id. 85), it does not operate to prevent this court from considering assignments of error based upon exceptions duly reserved during the progress of the trial to the admission of improper testimony, or the exclusion of proper testimony.

As in cases tried by jury, if the aggrieved party fails to move for a new trial he is not held thereby to acquiesce in any of the errors committed during the trial, to which he may have excepted, but may have, under our practice, all such errors considered by the appellate court. Kansas Pacific R. W. Co. v. Twombly’s Administrator, 2 Col. 559. So in cases tried by the court without a jury, in the absence of an exception to the final judgment, the supreme court may consider all assignments of error based on exceptions properly taken at the trial, being inhibited only from reviewing the judgment on the evidence.

In the cases decided by the Territorial supreme court, cited supra, the only question passed upon, involving a construction of section 22 of the Practice Act, related to the right of the supreme court to review a final judgment upon the sufficiency of the. testimony, where no [268]*268exception had been taken to such judgment. The point here decided has not been presented or passed upon by the supreme court of the Territory.

Of the other errors assigned, the only one upon which plaintiff in error seems to rely in argument, and the only one in our opinion worthy of serious consideration, is the second assignment, viz.: “The court erred in admitting drafts or bills of exchange and the account sued on, and attached to the deposition of C. O. TenBroeke.” The objection to receiving in evidence the account sued on, on the ground that there was no sufficient proof of the assignment thereof, is not valid. The authority of C. O. Ten Broeke as secretary of the company to make the assignment for the company is established by his own testimony. But it is argued that the account was not assignable, as there was no claim against Patton in esse at the time the assignment was made; that until the acceptance of the omnibus by Patton there was no account due, or to become due, which could be the subject of assignment. This position is, we think, untenable. It was held in‘ Petch v. Tutem, 15 M. & W. 109, that a tenant may assign his interest in crops to be grown in future years of his term. The future earnings of a railroad company may be assigned. Bittenbender v. Sunbury & Erie R. R. Co., 40 Penn. St. 275. In the case last cited, the court says, “it may be remarked that an assignment may be well made of any property of which the assignor has the actual or potential possession.” In the leading case of Grantham v. Hawley, Hobart, 132, it was held that a party who had an interest in land may grant all fruits that may arise upon it after, and the property shall pass as soon as the fruits are extant, as a person may grant all the tithe-wool he may have in such a year, yet perhaps he shall have none. But a man cannot grant all the wool that shall grow upon his sheep that he shall buy hereafter, for there he hath it neither actually nor potentially.” The claim assigned by the plaintiff below had a potential existence, and, therefore, under the authorities just cited, was a proper subject of assignment. It was [269]*269an assignment valid in equity, which a court of law will protect. The account, in connection with the testimony of Ten Broeke, was admissible, if for no other purpose, to show Patton’s indebtedness to the company.

Whether the drafts being unaccepted operated as an assignment per se of the company’s demand, or tended to prove such an assignment, is a question upon which the authorities are in great conflict. As in the view we have taken of the case under the pleadings, it is unnecessary to decide this point in order to a just determination of the rights of the parties litigant, we shall not pass upon this question-

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Bluebook (online)
3 Colo. 265, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/patton-v-coen-ten-broeke-c-m-co-colo-1877.