Arkadelphia Lumber Co. v. Mann

• Decision Date: 16 April 1906
• Parties: ARKADELPHIA LUMBER CO. v. MANN.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

94 S.W. 46

ARKADELPHIA LUMBER CO. v. MANN.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

April 16, 1906.

Appeal from Dallas Chancery Court; Emon O. Mahoney, Chancellor.

Suit by the Arkadelphia Lumber Company against John W. Mann, in which defendant filed a cross-complaint and asked that W. Burres Head be made a party. From a decree requiring W. Burres Head to specifically perform a contract, and directing the payment of certain money in court to defendant John W. Mann, plaintiff and W. Burres Head appeal. Reversed and remanded.

Appellant, Arkadelphia Lumber Company, sued appellee, John W. Mann, in replevin in the circuit court of Dallas county for possession of 10,000 oak staves of the value of $200, alleged to have been cut by Mann from land belonging to W. Burres Head and others, who had sold the timber to the lumber company. The defendant filed his answer and cross-complaint in which he denied the lumber company's alleged ownership of the staves, and alleged that said Head and the other owners of said land had entered into an agreement with him for the sale of the land for $300, and had placed him in possession of same and agreed to execute a conveyance, and that he had paid the purchase price and demanded a deed; that said owners had, in violation of their contract, refused to execute the deed, but had executed a deed to the lumber company attempting to convey the timber on the land for the sum of $350; and that the lumber company had entered upon said land and cut timber worth $300. He asked that the cause be transferred to equity, that Head be made a party to the suit, and that a specific performance of Head's agreement to convey the land be required, and that the timber deed to the lumber company be canceled as a cloud on his (defendant's) title. The cause was transferred to equity and the lumber company answered the cross-complaint and made its answer a cross-complaint against Mann and Head. It denied that Mann purchased the lands from Head, that Head placed him in possession, or that he was ever rightfully in possession; denied that it confederated with Head to cheat and defraud Mann. It alleged that the pretended contract from Head to Mann was verbal; that it was void under the statute of frauds; that in April, 1902, Mann represented to it that he owned said land, and sold the pine timber thereon to it for $500, and received its two checks for $300 and $200; that the $200 check was paid by it; that, after receiving the timber deed and paying the check for $200, it discovered that Mann had no title to said land or the timber thereon, so it purchased the pine and oak timber from W. Burres Head, acting for himself, and as attorney in fact for the other heirs of his father, W. B. Head, deceased, and paid therefor $350. The names of the said heirs, besides the said W. Burres Head, being Mrs. Della Head, the widow of W. B. Head, deceased, Mrs. Virgie Smith, Mrs. Rivers Hearon, Olive Head, and Bertha Head. It prayed for judgment against Mann for $200, paid to him for timber he did not own, and that the $300 unpaid check be canceled, and in the alternative, for judgment against Head for $350 for failure of consideration, if it be held that the title to the lands had previously been legally contracted to Mann. The defendant, W. Burres Head, answered, and made his answer a cross-complaint against Mann, and alleged that he was not the sole owner of the lands in controversy, but that same was owned by him jointly with the other heirs of the W. B. Head estate (naming them). As to the attempt of Mann to purchase said land, he admitted that there had been negotiations looking to that...