Bright v. Morrow

• Decision Date: 19 November 1920
• Docket Number: (No. 2322.)
• Citation: 225 S.W. 580
• Parties: BRIGHT v. MORROW et al.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

225 S.W. 580

BRIGHT v. MORROW et al.

(No. 2322.)

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. Texarkana.

November 19, 1920.

Rehearing Denied December 9, 1920.

Appeal from District Court, Fannin County; Ben H. Denton, Judge.

Suit by Emma Morrow and others against R. L. Bright and another. Judgment for plaintiffs, and the named defendant appeals. Judgment reversed as to appellant.

Appellees Emma Morrow, J. B. Tanner, C. B. Tanner, and Jennie A. Goodwin, were the children and only heirs of J. N. Tanner, who died intestate August 24, 1918. Their suit against Ollie Bright and appellant R. L. Bright was to recover $1,500, the proceeds, they alleged, of a sale by the Brights of an interest said J. N. Tanner owned in a crop of cotton grown by him and Ollie Bright on land they rented of appellant for the year 1918. The theory on which said appellees sought the recovery was that the Brights had unlawfully converted said proceeds to their own use. In his pleadings and in his testimony as a witness R. L. Bright denied that he rented the land to Ollie Bright and J. N. Tanner jointly, but alleged and testified that he rented it to Ollie Bright alone. He was supported in his contention by both the pleadings and testimony of Ollie Bright, but the jury found to the contrary on special issues submitted to them, that is, they found that R. L. Bright rented the land to both Ollie Bright and J. N. Tanner, and further found that the latter were "partners in the crop." On these findings and others he made himself the trial court rendered judgment in favor of appellees against R. L. Bright and Ollie Bright for the sum of $881.48.

The appeal from the judgment is by R. L. Bright alone.

J. W. Gross and J. A. O'Keefe, both of Bonham, and B. B. Sturgeon, of Paris, for appellant.

Thos. P. Steger and J. M. Baldwin, both of Bonham, for appellees.

WILLSON, C. J. (after stating the facts as above).

It appeared from the testimony that appellant advanced $1,102.35 to pay for chopping, picking, and hauling the cotton. As the survivor of the copartnership, Ollie Bright not only had a right, but it was his duty, to repay said sum to appellant out of the part the copartnership owned of the proceeds of the sale of the cotton crop. 20 R. C. L. 995, 1003, 1010; 30 Cyc. 620, 622, 634; Gresham v. Harcourt, 93 Tex. 149, 53 S. W. 1019.

After he so repaid said $1,102.35, there was left in Ollie Bright's hands $2,217.47 of said proceeds, one half of which, or $1,108.73, less $227.25 (the latter sum...