Stowers Furniture Co. v. Brake

47 So. 89, 158 Ala. 639, 1908 Ala. LEXIS 598
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedDecember 17, 1908
StatusPublished
Cited by33 cases

This text of 47 So. 89 (Stowers Furniture Co. v. Brake) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Stowers Furniture Co. v. Brake, 47 So. 89, 158 Ala. 639, 1908 Ala. LEXIS 598 (Ala. 1908).

Opinion

DENSON, J.

The complaint as originally filed contained only one count. In it the defendant was described as “Stowers Furniture Company,” without any averment to show whether it was a partnership or a corporation. The court properly allowed the amendment showing that the defendant is a corporation.-Ex parte Nicrosi, 103 Ala. 104, 15 South. 507. Nor did the court err in allowing counts A, B, C, D, and E as amendments to the complaint.

The action, then, is against a corporation; and each count of the complaint alleges trespass vi et armis to the person, and trespass vi et armis and de bonis asportatis, conjunctively. This is permissible in this jurisdiction, when the alleged trespasses are parts of the same trans[646]*646action. Here they are sufficiently shown to he parts of the same transaction, and the demurrer in this respect was properly overruled. — Henry v. Carleton, 113 Ala. 636, 21 South. 225; Birmingham, etc., Co. v. Lintner, 141 Ala. 420, 38 South. 363, 109 Am. St. Rep. 40; Southern Suspender Co. v. Van Borries, 91 Ala. 507, 8 South. 367; L. & N. R. R. Co. v. Mothershed, 97 Ala. 261, 12 South. 714.

The other grounds of demurrer to the complaint are fully answered by the allegations of the several counts.

The defendant pleaded eight pleas, Nos. 1 and 2 of which being the general issue. Under these pleas of the general issue, all matters set up in the other pleas (except, perhaps, that contained in pleas 3 and 8), might have been proved; consequently the court cannot be put in error for sustaining demurrers to said pleas.

As to the sufficiency of plea 3, it is argued that the owner of personal property has the right to take peaceable possession wherever he may find it, if he is entitled to the immediate possession. This is true, and the principle may be extended to a vendor in a conditional sale contract, after breach of the condition; but the talcing must, indeed, be a peaceable one. Here the complaint avers the commission of an assault and battery as the accompaniment of the taking; and, construing plea 3 most strongly against the defendant, it is apparent that it does not clearly shoAV that a breach of the peace Avas not committed. The demurrer takes the point, and the court properly sustained it. — Fuller’s Case, 115 Ala. 66, 22 South. 491.

In respect to plea 8 it avíII be observed that it fails to negative or traverse the averments of the complaint to the effect that an assault and battery was committed by defendant’s servants while acting Avithin the scope of their employment. For this reason, as well as for others, the demurrer to this plea was Avell sustained.

[647]*647We come now to consider questions presented l).y the bill of exceptions. It is the subject of express decision by this court that declarations of a sick person, relative to the symptoms and nature of the disease or injury under which he is laboring, whether made to a physician or other person, are admissible as original evidence. “Such declarations are admissible as explanatory of the present condition of the declarant, upon the principle of res gestae, as well as upon the necessity of the case.”— Rowland v. Walker, 18 Ala. 749; Eckles & Brown v. Bates, 26 Ala. 655, 659; Phillips v. Kelly, 29 Ala. 628; Birmingham, etc., Co. v. Hale, 90 Ala. 8, 8 South. 142, 24 Am. St. Rep. 748; Montgomery St. Ry. Co. v. Shanks, 139 Ala. 489, 501, 37 South. 166; Birmingham Ry., Light & Power Co. v. Rutledge, 142 Ala. 195, 202, 39 South. 338; Kansas City, & B. Ry. Co. v. Matthews, 142 Ala. 298, 311, 39 South. 207.

According to this principle, rulings of the court challenged by the ninth, tenth, and eleventh grounds in the assignment of errors, even if the questions were properly presented, could not be sustained. We note that no exception was reserved to the rulings of the court in respect to the matters embraced in the ninth and tenth assignments, while, in respect to the eleventh assignment, the former part of the question falls within the principle above alluded to; but the answer of the witness was not responsive, and the defendant should have adopted a motion to exclude as the remedy against the answer.

In respect to the twelfth ground in the assignment of errors, it is sufficient to say that no exception was reserved to the ruling of the court.

It does not appear from the bill of exceptions that the question to the witness Stancil, “Then what was said, if anything?” was objected to. The answer thereto was responsive, and the motion to exclude it was properly overruled. Therefore the thirteenth ground in the as[648]*648sign merit, of errors cannot be sustained. — Southern Ry. Co. v. Leard, 146 Ala. 349, 39 South. 449, and cases there cited.

Furthermore, all that was done and said by the parties who seized the property was competent as parts of the res gestae; and within this principle falls also the matter embraced in the fourteenth, sixteenth, and twentieth grounds in the assignment of errors.

The fifteenth, seventeenth, and nineteenth grounds in the assignment cannot be sustained, for the simple reason that the questions objected to were not answered.

The eighteenth ground in the assignment of errors embraces two rulings of the court: First, the overruling of defendant’s objection to a question to witness Hockholzer; and, second, the refusal of the court to exclude an answer to the question. Assigned in this manner, both rulings must constitute reversible error, or the assignment cannot be sustained. It is clear that the first ruling, even if erroneous, cannot avail defendant anything. It was not excepted to.

Upon the same principle the twenty-first ground in the assignment is not sustainable. It purports to embrace two rulings, one of which was not made by the court, and there was no motion to exclude.

The evidence shows that the acts complained of occurred late in the afternoon. It was competent, against the general objection to the question made by the defendant, to prove, by the husband of plaintiff, the condi. tion of the house on his return that night, and the twenty-second ground in the assignment cannot be sustained.

The twenty-third ground of error is not insisted upon in brief of counsel.

There was no objection to the question. “What became of the vases and ornaments?” and no stated ground for the motion to exclude the answer. Therefore [649]*649the twenty-fourth ground in the assignment of errors is without merit. — McCalman’s Case, 96 Ala. 98, 11 South. 408; Billingsley’s Case, 96 Ala. 126, 11 South. 409; Washington’s Case, 106 Ala. 58, 17 South. 546; Liner’s Case, 124 Ala. 1, 27 South. 438.

The twenty-fifth ground in the assignment challenges the ruling of the court overruling objection to the question to plaintiff calling for testimony of the value of a necklace which the evidence tended to show was taken. No ground for the objection was assigned, and the court was under no duty to cast about for a ground for the objection.-Wallis v. Rhea, 10 Ala. 453; Eason v. Isbell, 42 Ala. 456; Riley’s Case, 88 Ala. 193, 7 South. 149. The ground of error cannot be sustained.

There are two grounds of error numbered 26.

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Bluebook (online)
47 So. 89, 158 Ala. 639, 1908 Ala. LEXIS 598, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stowers-furniture-co-v-brake-ala-1908.