Union Cent. Life Ins. Co. v. Brewer

60 S.W.2d 849, 1933 Tex. App. LEXIS 759
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 12, 1933
DocketNo. 1110
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 60 S.W.2d 849 (Union Cent. Life Ins. Co. v. Brewer) 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
Union Cent. Life Ins. Co. v. Brewer, 60 S.W.2d 849, 1933 Tex. App. LEXIS 759 (Tex. Ct. App. 1933).

Opinion

LESLIE, Justice.

Originally this was a suit by J. E. Brewer against the Union Central Life Insurance Company and Scott W. Key, substitute trustee, to restrain the sale of a 113-acre tract of land under the terms of a deed of trust securing a loan also evidenced by a note due January 1,1926, and made by the company to J. W. Clark, who thereafter sold the land to Brewer, who as a part consideration therefor assumed the indebtedness to the company. A temporary injunction was granted on the allegation and affidavit to the effect that the indebtedness had been paid in full by Brewer. The company replied by general denial and cross-action on the alleged unpaid balance of the original indebtedness. Sale under the deed of trust was abandoned and a judgment of foreclosure sought. Brewer filed supplemental petition, more specifically setting up payment to one J. G. Bishop, alleged to be the agent of the company, with authority to receive and collect the debt, and in the alternative, if not such duly authorized agent, that the company had, by its acts, made said Bishop its apparent and ostensible agent to so collect and receive the balance due on said note, and was therefore estopped to deny his authority to make the collection.

The trial was before the court without a jury, and at its conclusion judgment was rendered perpetuating the injunction and refusing any relief upon the cross-action.

Appellant attacks the correctness of the judgment by nine propositions based on fifteen assignments of error. These propositions will be grouped and considered together, since they in effect raise but two questions: (1) Was J. G. Bishop, to whom the balance of the note was paid, and who misappropriated the same, the duly authorized agent of the Life Insurance Company to receive and collect the money so paid him by Brewer? (2) If not, had the company, at the time and prior thereto, by its acts, dealings, and conduct, led said Brewer to believe said Bishop had such authority? That is, had Bishop apparent authority to make the collection?

It is deemed unnecessary to devote any great amount of space to a consideration of the first question. This for two reasons: (1) The counsel for the appellee, in presenting the case on submission, stated that no reliance was made on the theory of actual authority; and (2) we discover no testimony tending to establish such authority.

For the alleged apparent authority we now examine the testimony, bearing in mind the rule stated in an early Texas case to the 'effect that “when one, by his words or conduct, wilfully causes another to believe the existence of a certain state of things, and induces him to act on that belief, so as to alter his own previous position, the former is concluded from averring, against the latter, a different state of things, as existing at the same time.” Love v. Barber, 17 Tex. 312; Wortham v. Thompson, 81 Tex. 348, 16 S. W. 1059; Green v. Priddy, 112 Tex. 567, 250 S. ' W. 656, 662 ; 2 Tex. Jur. p. 424, §§ 38, 39.

At the time the appellee, Brewer, made the last payment, the one here involved, on the tract of land purchased by him from Clark, Bishop & Bishop constituted a firm of lawyers at Gorman, Tex. From the evidence it appears that persons, including the appel-lee, interested in procuring loans from the insurance company, applied to said firm for such information. J. G. Bishop was a member of the firm, and it was to him that Brewer paid, on December 30, 1925, the sum of $476.76; $380.67 thereof being balance in full on the Clark loan No. 89944. The other $95.09 was on loan No. 92245. The payment was by cheek prepared by said J. G. Bishop and made payable to “J. G. Bishop Attorney Account.” The check was cashed by said Bishop on January 16, 1926. By this transaction Brewer insists he paid the note and therefore became entitled to its cancellation as well as a lien on the land. Upon the face of the note the first written matter which appears is the following: “No.agent is authorized to make any contract, verbal or written, differing from that written • and printed on the face of this note, nor is any agent permitted to collect any part of it unless indorsed to him for collection by an officer of the company.” The note provided for the payment of principal and interest “at the •home office of the company in Cincinnati, Ohio.” Kindred to the above quoted statement it contained the further emphatic provision that: “If this note is sent to Farmers State Bank at Gorman, Texas, or to any oth[851]*851er bank for collection, I agree to pay exchange and collection expenses, and this note shall not he deemed paid until the money is actually reeewed hy sand company.” (Italics ours.) The note was never in the possession of said Bishop, nor was it at any time delivered or indorsed to him for collection or any other purpose.

Brewer was well acquáinted with said Bishop prior to and subsequent.to the transaction here involved. In 1920 Brewer bought certain land known as the Forest farm, assuming an indebtedness held against it by the insurance company. Being notified by Bishop & Bishop that the interest was due thereon, he went to their office and gave them a check for the interest. The record is not clear that this check was made payable to Bishop & Bishop, but the litigants seem to so treat -it in their briefs. In any event, it was not made payable to J. G. Bishop attorney account, and further the payment in fact reached the company, which receipted therefor direct to Brewer.

Subsequently Brewer made payment of principal and interest on other loans held by the company, and apparently assumed by him. In each instance except the last (which is the one first noticed in this opinion) the check was made payable directly to the Union Central Life Insurance Company. In each instance the check was prepared by said Bishop and signed by Brewer, at whose request Bishop transmitted the checks directly to the company, which indorsed and collected the' same. ‘

One of said checks, dated December 31, 1924, for $360, payable to the Union Central Life Insurance Company, was a “½⅛ payment on Loan 101,365, for year 1924.” A similar payment of $360 was made by a check of date January 1, 1925, payable to the Union Central Life Insurance Company and carrying a like notation, “½⅛ payment on Loan 101,365, made for year 1925.” These payments were on the Coker farm loan. A third payment of $400 was made by check December 31, 1924, payable to Union Central Life Insurance Company and carrying notation, “%th payment Loan No. 92,245, made for year 1924.” By check dated January 1, 1925, another $400 payment was made direct to the insurance company, and the check bore notation, ‘%th payment Loan 92,245, payment for year of 1925.” Two other payments were made direct to said company by check; one dated December 31, 1924, one January 1,1925, each for $225, and each bearing notation “%th payment Loan No. 89,944,” — payment for the years 1924 and 1925, respectively. The last two payments were on the Clark loan, which is involved in this suit.

In chronological order this brings us again to the $476.76 payment made December 30, 1925, by check payable to “J. G. Bishop Attorney Account.” The appellee, Brewer, in explanation of this check and why he came to sign it in that form, stated that, the loan being due, he went to Bishop’s office to pay it off because he “had paid all the other payments through Bishop”; that, “Mr.

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60 S.W.2d 849, 1933 Tex. App. LEXIS 759, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/union-cent-life-ins-co-v-brewer-texapp-1933.