Peters v. Brookshire

178 S.W.2d 874, 1944 Tex. App. LEXIS 626
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 3, 1944
DocketNo. 14592.
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 178 S.W.2d 874 (Peters v. Brookshire) 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
Peters v. Brookshire, 178 S.W.2d 874, 1944 Tex. App. LEXIS 626 (Tex. Ct. App. 1944).

Opinion

*875 McDONALD, Chief Justice.

Appellant Mrs. Peters, as plaintiff in the court below, sued appellee Jeff J. Brook-shire for a partnership accounting and for a partition of partnership properties consisting of certain real estate in the City of Fort Worth.

In the year 1922, appellee Jeff J. Brook-shire and his brother S. N. Brookshire entered into a partnership for the purpose of owning and developing certain real estate. The brothers were each at that time, and each thereafter continued to be, engaged in business transactions other than those of the partnership. From 1922 until 1932 S. N. Brookshire made most, if not all, of the collections and disbursements of the partnership funds, and kept the books. After 1932, appellee Jeff J. Brookshire took over these duties. In 1934, S. N. Brookshire transferred his interest in the partnership to his wife Lydia Brookshire. In 1937, Lydia Brookshire died, leaving such interest by will to appellant Mrs. Peters.

The underlying theory of Mrs. Peters’ suit is that during the years 1922 to 1932, when her father S. N. Brookshire handled the money and kept the books, he expended a large amount of money on behalf of the partnership which he did not enter upon the partnership books that he kept. Her petition lists some eight hundred checks given by her father S. N. Brookshire, which she claims were partnership disbursements, and which are not shown in the books kept by her father. She alleges that there has never been a general accounting.

Of the 800 checks, approximately, described in the petition, all but 173 were eliminated from consideration of the jury presumably on the ground that the undisputed evidence showed that they were not given for partnership purposes. A list of 173 of the checks was submitted to the jury in connection with issues that required the jury to find which, if any of them, were given for partnership purposes. The jury found that none of them was given for partnership purposes. The judgment rendered is therefore adverse to appellant’s contentions.

The first point of error complains of the refusal of the trial court to submit to the jury a specially requested issue inquiring whether certain checks which S. N. Brookshire had given to a niece named Bertha Brookshire were to be considered as partnership disbursements and charged against the partnership account. These were not among the 173 checks above mentioned. It appears from the evidence that Bertha Brookshire had been injured in an accident, and that S. N. Brookshire and Jeff J. Brookshire agreed that the former should make gifts of money to her, and that the latter would reimburse him for half of such expenditures. Jeff J. Brook-shire testified that he had made such agreement, but that he had paid to his brother the half agreed upon. Appellant testified that she had heard her father and uncle refer to the payments made to Bertha Brookshire as a partnership matter. There is, we believe, a complete lack of any evidence to show that the payments made to Bertha Brookshire were any part of the partnership business which the two brothers carried on in the handling of the real estate involved in this suit. The partnership books contained no reference to such payments, and there is nothing in the testimony tending to support appellant’s contentions other than a vague reference or two in her own testimony to the effect that the checks given to Bertha Brookshire were “to be considered partnership”. Although the list of checks attached to appellant’s petition included the checks given to Bertha Brookshire, the partnership described in the petition is a business partnership entered into for the purpose of owning and developing certain real estate. There is simply no evidence that the payments to her were treated by the partners as a matter of partnership business.

The second and third points are related, and have reference to the fact that Mr. U. M. Simon, attorney for Mrs. Peters, was referred to by appellee’s attorney as a Jew. Three or four days before the end of the trial, just before the noon recess, appellee’s attorney called Mr. Simon to the witness stand. While Mr. Simon was still on the stand the judge announced the noon recess, left the bench, and entered his office. Appellee’s counsel, Mr. Rufus Garrett, and Mr. Simon engaged in an exchange of remarks which was overheard by some of the jury, in the course of which Mr. Garrett referred to Mr. Simon as a “lying Jew”. Mr. Simon answered that he was a Jew. The two attorneys began a physical encounter, but were separated by those in the courtroom. The .matter was not called to *876 the attention of the trial court at the time, nor was any exception taken by appellant. Complaint of the matter was made for the first time in the motion for new trial.

The second point of error charges that Mr. Garrett’s acts amounted to misconduct warranting a reversal in that it injected religious and racial prejudice into the case. We do not consider that the case should be reversed merely because the jury learned that one of the attorneys was a Jew. A jury might observe from a lawyer’s appearance that he was a negro, or a member of some other race, or might conclude from his name that he was of German, or of Irish, or some other racial extraction, yet we would not presume prejudicial error from that fact alone. The cases cited to us have been those where an attorney in his argument to the jury sought to raise a prejudice against a party or litigant because of his racial extraction. Each of the attorneys in the case before us called the other a liar. Their remarks appear to have been addressed to each other, and were made during a recess of court. If either of them felt that his client’s rights had been prejudiced, it seems to us that he should have brought the matter to the attention of the trial court instead of proceeding with the trial without making any mention of the matter.

The third point of error charges jury misconduct, in that one or more of the members of the jury stated in substance that the decision should go against the plaintiff because she was represented in the case by a lawyer who was a Jew. The trial court having overruled the motion for new trial without making any specific findings therein, we must imply such findings in support of his ruling as the testimony will warrant. Seven of the jurors testified on the hearing of the motion for new trial. Most favorable to appellant was the juror Armstrong, who said that statements were made in the jury room to the effect that appellant’s case should not be considered if her lawyer was a Jew. Armstrong admitted on cross-examination that he was the juror who made such statements, and none of the other jurors testifying said that they heard any such statements made, and several testified that no such statements were made in the jury room. Armstrong said in effect that he was prejudiced against Mr. Simon because he was a Jew, but also said that he was not prejudiced against Mrs. Peters because of that fact. He could not, of course, impeach his verdict by testifying to his mental processes employed in reaching the verdict. Without discussing it in detail, his testimony is so vague and uncertain, and so unsatisfactory in other respects, that we do not believe that the trial judge was required to accept it as controlling. Another juror testified that after the verdict had been returned into court, and read to them by the judge, one of the jurors said, “I wonder how that damned Jew likes that verdict”.

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Related

Peters v. Brookshire
195 S.W.2d 181 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1946)
Peters v. Brookshire
182 S.W.2d 361 (Texas Supreme Court, 1944)

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Bluebook (online)
178 S.W.2d 874, 1944 Tex. App. LEXIS 626, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/peters-v-brookshire-texapp-1944.