Silvey v. Herndon

234 S.W.2d 335, 1950 Mo. App. LEXIS 523
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedNovember 16, 1950
Docket6955
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 234 S.W.2d 335 (Silvey v. Herndon) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Silvey v. Herndon, 234 S.W.2d 335, 1950 Mo. App. LEXIS 523 (Mo. Ct. App. 1950).

Opinion

234 S.W.2d 335 (1950)

SILVEY
v.
HERNDON.

No. 6955.

Springfield Court of Appeals. Missouri.

November 16, 1950.

*336 Rogers & Rogers, Gainesville, for appellant.

J. Bernie Lewis, Ava, for respondent.

VANDEVENTER, Presiding Judge.

This is a suit on an account. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff in the sum of $965.20, defendant appeals.

Plaintiff was engaged in the feed business at Ava, Missouri and defendant was one of his customers, living out in the country some eleven miles. Plaintiff sold shorts, chicken feed, hog fattening, egg mash, crushed corn and feed, and bought eggs and produce. The period for which the account was alleged to have run was from July 18, 1947 until May 15, 1948. Plaintiff's evidence showed that defendant and her son would come into his place of business and buy shorts, pulverized corn, salt and other kinds of stock feed, which, on many occasions plaintiff, in person, or by his employees would deliver to her farm and place in her barn. Plaintiff's system of bookkeeping was very simple. At the time a purchase was made, an invoice was made with a carbon copy. This invoice showed the date, the purchaser, the articles sold and the price. The copy was on yellow paper and was given to the customer or laid down on the desk where the customer could get it. The original was kept by the merchant until the goods sold were paid for and was then delivered to the customer. Partial payments on account were recorded in the same manner. Testimony was introduced, without objection, to show that this was the customary method of keeping feed store accounts in that community. The various items of the account were introduced in evidence by the plaintiff, each showing the date of the purchase, the kind of feed purchased and the price. The total amount from July 18th to *337 December 30, 1947, inclusive, was $671. The amount sold in 1948 was $703.20, making a total of $1374.20. Plaintiff was given credit for payments beginning July 25, 1947 and ending May 11, 1948 of a total of $409. Of this sum $190 was for 1947. These deliveries to her farm were made at defendant's request. Sometimes the feed would be ordered by the defendant, sometimes by her son, at other times both would be present, but all the times it was delivered to her farm and stored in her barn. There were two accounts, the one in question and one for "Dairy feed," which was kept paid up upon receipt of the "milk checks." Defendant's son's name was John Nokes and relative to John's agency for the purchase of feed, plaintiff testified on cross examination:

"Q. January 24, eight sacks of pulverized corn, who ordered that? A. She either sent in for it or came for it in person.

"Q. Did she or would she send an order for it? A. When the boy would come, he would say, so many sacks for mother and so much dairy feed.

"Q. Would he tell you to send it out? A. Sometimes.

"Q. Did she tell you to sell him merchandise when he came in and charge it to her? A. If she ordered it.

"Q. Well, did she order any of it? A We think she did.

"Q. Did she ever tell you at anytime John came in there to buy merchandise to charge it to her? A. I am pretty sure she did.

"Q. Are you sure? A. Yes, sir.

"Q. These items you have charged to her, if John bought them, you are going on the assumption he had authority from his mother to buy them? A. Yes, sir."

Wilbur K. Klineline, an employee driver for plaintiff during 1947, testified:

"Q. Did you ever deliver any feed to Mrs. Herndon? A. Yes, sir."

Lawrence Tate, another driver for plaintiff in 1948 testified:

"Q. Did you ever deliver any feed to Mrs. Herndon? A. Yes, sir. * * *

"Q. Lawrence, did you haul feed to her farm? A. Yes.

"Q. And unloaded it and put it in her barn? A. Yes."

Plaintiff testified, when shown a check for $20 marked, "In full for all feed."

"Q. You don't know that is dairy or not? A. No, I remember at one time she did give me a check having on it, `Paid in full', which was for dairy feed."

Defendant's answer to plaintiff's petition was a general denial. Her testimony was that on December 30, 1947, she went to the store of the plaintiff and told him she wanted to pay the balance of her account. He told her the balance due was $20 and she paid it. At the trial she produced a check in the handwriting of her daughter-in-law for the sum of $20 and the check bore a notation, "Payment in full for all feed." This check was introduced in evidence. When asked on cross examination if there had been an erasure on the check, defendant said: "No, sir, you can go over to the bank and get the photostatic copy of it."

Defendant then offered as a witness O. C. Reynolds, cashier of the Bank of Ava, in which this check had been deposited by plaintiff. Mr. Reynolds testified he had a machine in his bank that photographed all checks on out of town banks and that a picture of this particular check had been taken on January 10, 1948. It was on an out of town bank, having been written on the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Springfield. Mr. Reynolds first stated that the check had on it the notation "Paid in full for dairy feed". He then corrected this statement and said the notation showed "For all feed". On cross examination, he also said the picture at the bank was exactly like the check that was presented to him for examination and it stated "Paid in full for all feed." Some question was raised as to whether there had been an erasure on the check after it had passed into his bank and was photographed, and, at the suggestion of plaintiff's counsel and with the acquiescence of the court, witness Reynolds took the sheriff over to the bank and together they viewed the picture of the *338 check and they discovered that while the check bore the notation "Paid in full for all feeds" the photograph showed "Paid in full for dairy feed." The testimony further showed that the check, after its release by the bank upon which it was drawn, had been in the possession of the defendant.

Defendant further testified that she had never authorized her son, John Nokes, to make any purchases for her at all in 1948 and he testified to the same effect. He further stated that he had made purchases for himself during 1948 but that he always paid for them when he received his milk check and that he did not owe the plaintiff anything.

Mrs. Maxine Nokes, the wife of defendant's son, testified that she wrote the $20 check and that defendant made a notation on it, "Paid in full for all feed." That defendant, at the time, told plaintiff she wanted to pay her account. She denied that she had anything charged to defendant's account and that whatever she and her husband bought was paid for out of the milk check. She testified positively that the day the check was written and given to plaintiff that it bore the notation "Paid in full for all feed."

Defendant testified that the reason she paid her account in full in December, 1947, was that she intended to go to California to visit her son, who, it appears, was returning from China. She was gone about 5 weeks. The record shows that no objection was made when the court sent the banker and the sheriff over to the bank to examine the photograph and no objection was made when they came into court and testified as to what the photograph showed.

Three grounds of error are assigned on the part of appellant. They are: 1. There is no evidence in the record showing defendant bought any merchandise from plaintiff in 1948 or that anyone bought such merchandise for her. 2.

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Bluebook (online)
234 S.W.2d 335, 1950 Mo. App. LEXIS 523, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/silvey-v-herndon-moctapp-1950.