Texas Candy & Nut Co. v. Horton

235 S.W.2d 518, 1950 Tex. App. LEXIS 1801
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 20, 1950
Docket14249
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 235 S.W.2d 518 (Texas Candy & Nut Co. v. Horton) 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
Texas Candy & Nut Co. v. Horton, 235 S.W.2d 518, 1950 Tex. App. LEXIS 1801 (Tex. Ct. App. 1950).

Opinion

iCRAMER, Justice.

Appellees Hal C. Horton, Sr., Hal C. Horton, Jr., and Paul W. Plunket, Jr., trading as Hal C. Horton, brought this action against C. C. Bennett and John R. Terrill, trading as Texas Candy & Nut Company, *520 also alternatively against each-of the following: Texas iCandy & Nut Company, a. co-partnership composed of C., C. Bennett and John R. Terrill, also against C. C. Bennett and John R. Terrill as partners and individuals, also against C. C. Bennett as owner and John R. Terrill as general manager, agent, servant, and employee of Texas 'Candy & Nut Company, also against Texas Candy & Nut Company, a trust estate of which C. C. Bennett and wife La-Nette Bennett are grantors and grantees and trustors and trustees, with Lindalyn" Bennett and Ida Bess Bennett as beneficiaries, against Texas Candy & Nut Company of which Lindalyn and Ida Bess Bennett are beneficiaries, also against John R. Terrill and C. C. Bennett as agents, servants, and employees of said trust and of the Texas Candy & Nut Company, also against C. C. Bennett and wife LaNette Bennett as trustees of said trust and of the Texas Candy & Nut Company, also against Ida Bess and Lindalyn Bennett as beneficiaries' of said trust and of Texas Candy & Nut Company, for $10,250 damages growing out of the alleged breach of an option and sales contract covering one thousand drums of cane molasses syrup. Trial was to the court without a jury and after hearing the evidence the court took the matter under advisement, thereafter granting a motion for leave to file- a trial amendment. The trial amendment, in addition to above named defendants, complained of C. C. Bennett and John R. Terrill individually and as joint adventurers. The court then rendered judgment against C. C. Bennett and John R. Terrill, jointly and severally, and a take nothing judgment against appellees in favor of all other defendants. This appeal was duly perfected from that judgment by appellants C. C. Bennett and John R. Terrill only.

It • appears ’ from evidence, most favorable to the judgment, that Hal C. Horton, at Greenville, received a telephone call from someone in Dallas who told him his name was C. C. Bennett and asked him if he was the party who had theretofore bought some syrup from B & W Candy Company. Horton told him he was. Such party then told Horton that he had considerable of the same syrup and wa.nted to know if he was interested. Horton told him he was. They discussed terms, Horton offering him $9 per drum, Bennett asking $10. They could not get together and Bennett told him the syrup was at McKinney and other points and asked Horton to go to McKinney and see it. Horton went to McKinney and, at the address given in the phone call, met John R. Terrill (a nephew of Bennett) in the place of business of the Texas Candy & Nut Company. Horton told Terrill of the conversation with Bennett. Terrill was manager of Texas Candy & Nu-t Company which was owned by a trust estate of which C. C. Bennett was one of the trustees. John R, Terrill there made an agreement with Horton for Texas Candy & Nut ¡Company in substance as follows: Texas Candy & Nut Company gave Horton an option to purchase 750 to 1,000 drums of syrup for $10 per drum. Thereafter Horton exercised the option within the time limit and contracted for 1,000 drums of syrup at the agreed price of $10 per drum. Bennett and Terrill and the Texas Candy & Nut Company thereafter declined to deliver the syrup as contracted for. The damage suffered by appellee Hal C. Horton by reason of the 'breach was $7,937.50.

Appellants assign 26 points of error. .

The first three points complain of the' trial court’s permitting the filing of the trial amendment after the close of the evidence. The record shows that the trial court, when the trial amendment was presented, after the evidence had closed, and on December 27, 1948, gav-e appellants’ attorneys until December 29, at 2:00 P. M., to make objections to the trial amendment. At that time the bil-1 of exceptions shows the following conversation between the court and the attorneys:

“Court: Do the defendants have anything to say about this?
“Abernathy: I don’t think so.
“'Court: Are you ready for me to announce my decision?
“Truet-t: I am.”

*521 Under such record these points are overruled. '■ ' ‘ "•

Points 4 and 5 complain of the admission over their objection of the conversation between Horton, over the telephone, with the party who told him he was C. C. Bennett, as detailed above. Such evidence,- if not admissible, was material and necessary to connect C. C. Bennett with the contract, — the breach of which is the basis of this suit. The general rule applicable to such conversations over telephone is well settled. When the party called over a telephone depends entirely upon the word of the party calling as to his identity, the conversation is hearsay and not admissible. If, however, the party calling, in addition to his statement of his identity, relates facts and circumstances which, taken with other established facts, tend to reveal his identity, then the conversation is admissible. Such evidence makes a question of fact as to such identity of the" person calling. National Aid Life Ass’n v. Murphy, Tex.Civ.App., 78 S.W.2d 223, syllabi 7 and 8, and Thomasson v. Davis, Tex.Civ.App., 74 S.W.2d 557, both by this Court. Horton testified on the trial that prior to the conversation here challenged he had bought some 403 drums of syrup from the B & W iCandy Company of Greenville. (B & W, the record shows, meant Charles Bennett and Karl Woodward. That when he went to McKinney he advised John R. Terrill of the phone call and was told by Terrill that Bennett had talked to him. Terrill then showed Horton the syrup and thereafter the option and agreement in issue were completed. Under the state of the record no error is shown by points 4 and S.

Points 6 to 11, inclusive, are briefed together and will be so considered. They assert in substance that, the contract being made -by Terrill, before the judgment can be sustained there must be a showing (6) that Terrill owned the syrup or had authority to represent the owner; (7) and since Horton made no attempt to determine the ownership, no sufficient showing to sustain the judgment is in the record; (8) that since all important dealings were with Terrill and there is no showing that Bennett owned •the syrup in question as a joint adventurer with Terrill,-or that Terrill acted'in the capacity of a joint adventurer in giving the option and making the contract, it was error to enter judgment against them as joint adventurers; also that there was error in admitting, over objection, the evidence of (9) Horton, Sr.,, and the witnesses (10),Tune and (11) Jack Horton, that Ter-rill told them he had authority to sell the syrup in question.

Since, in overruling points 4 and S, we have held that the evidence of C. C.

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235 S.W.2d 518, 1950 Tex. App. LEXIS 1801, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/texas-candy-nut-co-v-horton-texapp-1950.