Transfer Realty Co. v. Lichfield

39 P.2d 752, 85 Utah 451, 1935 Utah LEXIS 86
CourtUtah Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 10, 1935
DocketNo. 5293.
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 39 P.2d 752 (Transfer Realty Co. v. Lichfield) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Utah Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Transfer Realty Co. v. Lichfield, 39 P.2d 752, 85 Utah 451, 1935 Utah LEXIS 86 (Utah 1935).

Opinion

CHRISTENSEN, District Judge.

Appellant has filed petition for rehearing on the grounds that the court erred in the application of the rules of law and equity to the facts in the case. In said petition appellant agrees that the sole question is whether or not there is sufficient competent evidence in the record to sustain the trial court’s findings that the agents of appellant, in receiving payments from Mr. Buell in the amounts and at the times they did, were acting within the scope of their authority. Appellant in said petition for rehearing complains that the writer of the opinion fails to announce any reasons for the dispositions of many of the points raised by appellant in the appeal, and earnestly contends that the evidence received does not sustain the trial court’s finding that the agents, in receiving payments from Mr. Buell in the amounts and at the times they did, were acting within the scope of their authority, and that this court, in holding that said finding is supported by a preponderance of competent *452 proof, was laboring under a misapprehension of the facts.

To meet said complaint this supplemental opinion is written.

Appellant assigned as errors on the part of the trial court to the prejudice of appellant:

(1) The overruling of objections to the admission of certain exhibits, 1 to 21, inclusive, tending to prove payment of the mortgage.

(2) The overruling of appellant’s objections to certain questions propounded to the witness James P. Clayton.

(3, 4, 5, 6, and 7) The overruling of appellant’s objections to certain questions propounded to the witnesses T. H. Heal, William G. Lichfield, J. T. Simpkins, F. 0. Buell, and J. C. Knell.

(8) The overruling of appellant’s objections to the introduction in evidence of the mortgages of John B. Bullock, S. John Nuttall, Jr., and wife, and Clifford A. Tolboe and wife.

(9) The overruling of appellant’s motion ¿¡to strike from the records the testimony of the witness J. P. Clayton.

We find no errors in the trial court’s overruling the objections to the questions propounded to these witnesses, and to the admission of Respondents’ Exhibits 1 to 21, nor to the admission of the mortgage of Bullock, Nuttall et ux., and Tolboe et ux., since the evidence sought to be elicited was offered as tending to prove the payment of the mortgage sought to be foreclosed and to show that the Provo Consolidated Real Estate Company and the Provo Realty Company were collecting and receiving money on loans at different times, in different amounts, and at a different place, than provided by the terms of the notes and mortgages, and that the Halloran-Judge Trust Company was allowing said notes and mortgages to be paid off at any time, both principal and interest, and was allowing said agents to accept and receive payments on loans in any amount and at any time the borrowers wanted to pay, and was thus establishing a *453 course of dealing, a custom among the borrowers and the public in and about the vicinity of Provo, Utah, which course of dealing, 'defendants contend, gave the borrowers a right to believe that the Provo Consolidated Real Estate Company and the Provo Realty Company were acting within the scope of their authority in so accepting payments, and such evidence was therefore material and relevant.

The appellant further assigns as prejudicial error:

(19) The court’s making its finding of fact No. 6, for the reasons (a) that several unrelated findings of fact are contained therein, and (b) that these findings are not supported by any competent evidence.

(11) The court’s making its finding of fact No. 7, for the reasons that the facts found therein are not supported by any competent evidence and have no probative value.

(12) The court’s making its finding of fact No. 8, for the reasons that there is no competent evidence to justify said finding.

(13) The court’s making its conclusions of law, because such conclusions are not supported by the findings of fact nor the evidence.

(14) The court’s entering judgment for defendants and against plaintiff because said decree or judgment is contrary to and against the facts and the law.

As to No. 19: We find no merit in the reasons advanced that several unrelated findings of fact are contained in finding of fact No. 6. There is a sufficient unity in the finding to justify its being given as one finding, instead of five, as suggested by appellant, and we see no prejudicial error in so stating the finding. We are also of the opinion that sufficient competent evidence was presented to fully sustain it.

Appellant’s assignments of error Nos. 11 and 12, that the court’s findings Nos. 7 and 8 are not justified by any competent evidence in the record, are in our judgment without merit. These findings are as follows:

*454 “7. That the said Provo Realty Company as the agent of the said Halloran-Judge Trust Company, represented to the defendant F. 0. Buell on the 7th day of September, A. D. 1929, and on divers occasions prior thereto, that it had authority to receive on the 7th day of September, 1929, and on divers dates prior thereto, payment in full of the principal and interest on the note and mortgage sued upon in this action, and that the said Provo Realty Company as agent of the said Halloran-Judge Trust Company did between the 1st day of November, 1928 and the 7th day of September, 1929, receive from the said defendant, F. O. Buell the principal and interest on said note and mortgage in full, which amount the said agent, by its officers T. H. Heal and James P. Clayton stated to the defendant F. O. Buell was the balance of principal and interest due and owing on said note and mortgage, and the amount necessary to discharge and satisfy said note and mortgage in full, and that the said agent through its officers on said dates stated to the defendant F. O. Buell that upon the payment of the said sum, that the said mortgage would be cancelled, released and discharged by the said Halloran-Judge Trust Company, and that the said obligation to the said Halloran-Judge Trust Company would be paid in full, and that the papers covering the same would be returned to the defendant F. O. Buell. That between the 1st day of November, 1928, and the 7th day of September, 1929, the defendant, F. O. Buell did pay to the said Halloran-Judge Trust Company by and through its agent, the Provo Realty Company the entire principal and interest due and owing upon the note and obligation sued upon in this action. That said payments were acknowledged by the said Halloran-Judge Trust Company by and through the receipts of its agent the Provo Realty Company, which said payments covered payment of the entire principal and interest of said note and mortgage in full.”
“8. That the said note and mortgage sued upon in this action has been fully paid as aforesaid, and the said note should have been marked paid and returned to the defendant F. O. Buell, and the said mortgage should have been satisfied, discharged and released of record in the office of the County Recorder of Utah County, State of Utah.”

(The court’s finding No. 6 appears in the original opinion.)

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Bluebook (online)
39 P.2d 752, 85 Utah 451, 1935 Utah LEXIS 86, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/transfer-realty-co-v-lichfield-utah-1935.