Sanders v. O'Connor

98 S.W.2d 401
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 23, 1936
DocketNo. 13436
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 98 S.W.2d 401 (Sanders v. O'Connor) 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
Sanders v. O'Connor, 98 S.W.2d 401 (Tex. Ct. App. 1936).

Opinion

BROWN, Justice.

Prior to August, 1933, appellant Sanders and one James Ditto, as lessees, occupied certain lands belonging to appellee O’Con-nor, and conducted a dairy thereon as partners. They had been operating at a loss and on August 1, 1933, were in arrears on the rental contract in the sum of about $3,700. A new lease was then entered into whereby the lessees obligated themselves to pay the lessor the total sum of $19,650 as rentals, which partly covered past-due rentals that were adjusted between the parties, and of course covered the rentals which were to accrue during the term of the lease. The lease was for a term of 29 months, beginning August 1, 1933, and ending December 31, 1935.

In the last lease contract, the lessor was expressly given a chattel mortgage lien upon all the personal property used by appellant and Ditto in their said dairy business to secure all the rents accrued and to accrue.

Ditto had put in this partnership venture a larger number of cows than had appellant Sanders, and Ditto had mortgaged the personal property furnished by him in the partnership project to First State Bank of Arlington, Tex., to secure .an indebtedness in the sum of $6,000.

On June 14, 1934, Ditto and appellant Sanders being greatly in arrears on their rental contract, appellee O’Connor brought suit in the Ninety-Fifth district court of Dallas county against James Ditto and appellant M. C. Sanders and the First State Bank of Arlington. The petition declared upon the lease contract last above mentioned, set forth the chattel mortgage lien on all of the personal property used in connection with the dairy business being conducted by Ditto and Sanders, specifically averred that rents amounting to the sum of $4,420.64, being $355.16 accrued during the year 1933 and $4,065.48 rents accrued since January 1, 1934, were past due and unpaid, and averred that additional rents were maturing monthly in installments of $677.58, as provided for in the lease, and alleged that Ditto owed said First State Bank of Arlington a note in the principal sum of $6,000, which was secured by a chattel mortgage lien upon a portion of the property on which O’Connor claimed likewise a lien, and averred that the income from the dairy business was insufficient to meet the operating expenses and to pay the indebtedness due the said bank and the installments of rent due and accruing; that the property is perishable in its nature, and unless properly cared for, same will depreciate in value and petitioner’s security will be impaired and destroyed, and that unless proper steps were taken to conserve and care for all of the property and to properly manage the same, the defendants (Ditto and Sanders) will be able to dissipate the revenues available from the property and the petitioner will lose his debt and be irreparably -injured. Petitioner avers that by reason of the matters set forth a necessity exists for the appointment of á receiver to take charge of, manage, and operate all of the property during the pendency of the suit, etc.

This petition being properly verified and presented to the district court, on June 14, 1934, the trial court ordered the defendants named therein to appear and show cause on the 23d day of June, 1934, if any, why a receiver should not be appointed as prayed' for.

Appellant Sanders signed and delivered a waiver of the issuance and service of citation in such suit upon him, and in the same instrument demurred generally to the petition and denied generally its averments. Appellant not only admits signing such instrument, which was filed among the papers in the said suit, but admits being pres[403]*403ent in court on June 23, 1934, and that he heard some of the discussion with respect to the disposition of the case.

A settlement agreement was entered into, reduced to writing and duly executed on June 23, 1934, by and between appel-lee O’Connor, plaintiff in the said suit, James Ditto, appellant M. C. Sanders, and the above named bank. This agreement appears to have been signed “M. C. Sanders, by Rhea T. O’Connor,” who, it appears from the record, likewise signed the above-mentioned waiver on the part of Sanders as attorney for Sanders, his signature appearing on the waiver and answer immediately under the personal signature of M. C. Sanders.

The substance of this settlement agreement is that O’Connor agrees to pay the said bank the sum of $5,893.55, for which he is to be subrogated to the rights of the said' bank in the property securing the indebtedness due the bank; that he further agrees to pay the sum of $1,250 to Ditto and Sanders in consideration of the agreement by Ditto and Sanders to disclaim all interest in the property situated upon the premises on which said defendants were then conducting their dairy business and against which property the said O’Connor owned and claimed a chattel mortgage lien to secure the amounts due him under the said lease contract. That the said $1,250 should be applied by O’Connor ratably to the payment of claims of creditors of Ditto and Sanders, whose bills had been incurred in the operation of the dairy on the premises involved. That promptly upon the execution of the said agreement, an agreed judgment establishing and foreclosing the indebtedness and liens held by O’-Connor by virtue of his lease contract and his purchase of the above-mentioned bank debt against the entire property, should be entered, and upon the approval and entry of such judgment immediate possession of such property should be delivered to O’-Connor by Ditto and Sanders, but such judgment should be one in rem only -and should not be a personal judgment against either Ditto or Sanders; and that O’Con-nor should in no way claim or have any personal indebtedness from Ditto or Sanders by reason of any deficiency which might result from a sale under foreclosure of such property. And the judgment further provided that O’Connor should in no way be or become personally liable for any indebtedness owing by Ditto and Sanders beyond the sum of $1,250 which he had agreed to pay; and the agreement further provided that all costs incurred should be paid by O’Connor.

A judgment. strictly in accordance with the above agreement was entered on June 23, 1934, and the indebtedness owed by Ditto and Sanders at such time to O’Con-nor is recited to be $18,089.99. This judgment appears to have been approved by Rhea T. O’Connor, attorney for appellant M.'C. Sanders.

Appellant Sanders admits that he knew about this judgment, having obtained such information much less than thirty days after the judgment was rendered and entered, and admits that he employed counsel to look into the matter for him.

Nothing was done by Sanders to either set aside or modify this judgment, and no bill of review was attempted by him.

Eear in mind the fact that appellant was living on the lands in question with his wife; that he continued to live there and to work about the premises until, according to his own testimony, August 17, 1934, when he deliberately left his home and the premises without advising O’Connor of his intention to leave and without telling O’-Connor where he was going or why. He testified that he left because he found out that he was “in a bad shape” with respect to the situation and because of some differences he had with his wife. He testifies that he remained away more than a month. During the time he stayed on the premises he had conversations with O'-Connor, and, according to his testimony, about July 3, 1934, the name of the business was changed to O’Connor Dairy, Inc.

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Bluebook (online)
98 S.W.2d 401, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sanders-v-oconnor-texapp-1936.