Standard Scale & Supply Co. v. Chapin

218 S.W. 645, 1920 Tex. App. LEXIS 96
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 21, 1920
DocketNo. 6321.
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 218 S.W. 645 (Standard Scale & Supply Co. v. Chapin) 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
Standard Scale & Supply Co. v. Chapin, 218 S.W. 645, 1920 Tex. App. LEXIS 96 (Tex. Ct. App. 1920).

Opinion

COBBS, J.

This suit was filed against Standard Scale & Supply Company by O. C. Chapin, alleging:

That “about November 1, 1914, he was awarded contracts for laying approximately 60,000 surface yards of concrete streets in the city of San Antonio, and that in order to do this work he desired to purchase a concrete mixer with a capacity of not less than 1,400 square yards of 6-inch concrete per day; that appellant was engaged in the business of manufacturing and selling concrete mixers, and, after having been informed by appellee of the above facts, sold him a concrete mixer which was expressly warranted to have a satisfactory working capacity of 1,400 square yards of concrete per day; that, relying upon such warranty, ap-pellee' purchased such mixer, but. the same was defective and greatly inferior to what it had been, guaranteed and represented to be; that he promptly notified appellant that the machine was defective and to begin operation with it would cause Him great financial loss; that appellant expected to sell other machines, and through its agents persuaded appellee to proceed with such machine, promising him that appellant would protect him in any loss he-sustained by use of said machine pending the time that appellant would furnish him with a new mixer which would do the work that appellant had warranted the machine to do; that, relying upon such promise to protect him in any losses he would incur by use of said machine, appellee did use the same, but appellant never furnished a new machine; and that the loss sustained thereby was the excess in the actual cost of doing the work with the defective machine above what it would have reasonably cost to have done the work had the machine been as represented, and was $5,000.”

Appellant answered, claiming the machine sold was a new and untried machine, and that the appellee knew the same was an experiment, and that appellee assumed all the risk incident to the use of the machine. Appellant further pleaded estoppel because the appellee used the machine in all of his work and completed all of his paving in San Antonio with said alleged defective machine. Appellant filed a cross-action against ap-pellee and prayed for damages in the sum of $5,500 for expenses incurred in labor, materials, and mechanical parts on the machine furnished the appellee.

The trial was before a jury on special issues, and resulted in a judgment in favor of appellee against appellant for $1,940.

The first assighment is:

“Because the court erred in admitting in evidence the copies of paving contracts attached to plaintiff’s trial amendment; the defendant objecting to the said exhibits as being at variance with the allegations of the pleadings of plaintiff in the case.”
The proposition of law contended for is :
“Evidence not originally admissible cannot be made admissible by attaching the same to a pleading filed in the case.”

The assignment is not clear and contains two objections in one; that is, it is claimed it was error to admit in evidence paving contracts because attached to plaintiff’s trial amendment, and being in variance with the allegations of the pleadings of plaintiff. There would be no objection to introducing the same in evidence, though attached to the pleading, if properly proven, while there might be if there was a variance between the allegations and the proof, but the proposition seems confined to the objection that, if not originally admissible, it could not be made so by attaching same to the pleading. Appellee strenuously objects to our considering the assignment at all, for the. reason it is not a proposition, and fails to point out any alleged variance, and the proposition cannot be made admissible by attaching it to the pleading. Tex. Harvester Co. v. Wilson-Whaley Co., 210 S. W. 574.

The contract to do the street paving was awarded to appellee by the city about November 1, 1914, and the written contracts about which appellant complains were based upon awards for laying approximately 60,000 surface yards of concrete in the city of San Antonio, and upon the trial the contracts were properly proven up the basis of the suit.

These contracts were attached to appellee’s trial amendment, and then described in response to appellant’s exception in the first amended original answer, demanding in a very full special exception a description of the contracts, the dates thereof, names of parties, and consideration therefor.

The second assignment complains that—

The “court erred in admitting in evidence the contracts between the plaintiff and the city of San Antonio attached to plaintiff’s trial amendment because the same were not the original contracts, not signed up by all of the contracting parties, and no predicate was laid for the Introduction of the same as secondary evidence.”
The proposition is:
“Copies of written instruments are not admissible in evidence unless proof of loss of the original instrument has been made and a proper predicate laid for their introduction as secondary evidence.”

The proof introduced was to the effect that—

*647 Appellee “testified tliat the awards on which these contracts were based were made during the months of September and October, 1914. C. G. Brown, who was mayor of the city of San Antonio at the time the awards were made and the contracts executed, testified that it was not unusual for awards which were made in September or December to be not formally reduced to and executed as written contracts before as late as January or February, and that such delay was occasioned in the contracts going the rounds and being examined and passed upon by different parties. And the contracts introduced were the reduction to writing of the contracts which were awarded appellee, and were the identical contracts which were attached to appel-lee’s trial amendment.”

Mr. Brown also testified the contracts were originals, though not signed by all the parties.

The third assignment is:

“Because the court erred in failing to grant the special charge requested by defendant, to wit:
“ ‘In the District Court of Bexar County, Forty-Fifth Judicial District of Texas.
“ ‘O. C. Chapin v. Standard Seale & Supply Co. et al.
“ ‘Now comes the defendant in the above-entitled cause and moves the court to submit to the jury the following special issues in this cause:
“ ‘(1) Did the defendant in the sale of a certain concrete mixing machine to the plaintiff during the latter part of 1914 expressly warrant that said machine would not mix less than 1,400 square yards of concrete per day? Answer “Yes” or “No.”
“ ‘(2) Was it due entirely to defects in the machine that it did not do the amount of work the plaintiff expected it would do? Answer “Yes” or “No.”

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Tucker v. Smellage
297 S.W. 875 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1927)
Chapman v. Reese
268 S.W. 967 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1925)
Ciulla v. Ciulla
253 S.W. 643 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1923)
Rone v. Marti
244 S.W. 639 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1922)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
218 S.W. 645, 1920 Tex. App. LEXIS 96, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/standard-scale-supply-co-v-chapin-texapp-1920.