Brown Land Co. v. Lehman

• Decision Date: 07 June 1907
• Parties: BROWN LAND CO. v. LEHMAN.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

134 Iowa 712

112 N.W. 185

BROWN LAND CO.

v.LEHMAN.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

June 7, 1907.

Appeal from District Court, Guthrie County; J. H. Applegate, Judge.

Action to recover damages against a tenant of farm land for breach of stipulations of a lease with regard to keeping the premises in good condition; the complaint being that the tenant allowed them to be overrun with cockle burrs. Verdict and judgment for defendant. Plaintiff appeals. Reversed.Weeks & Hughes, for appellant.

S. B. Gwinn and E. R. Sayles, for appellee.

McCLAIN, J.

The two material stipuiations in the written lease, breach of which is complained of, were that the tenant would at the expiration of the lease yield up the possession to the owner in as good condition and order as when the same was entered upon by the tenant, losses by fire or inevitable accident and ordinary wear excepted; and that the tenant would keep said premises free from brush and burrs. The evidence showed, without substantial controversy, that, when the premises were surrendered by the defendant to the plaintiff at the expiration of the lease, they were badly infested with cockle burrs; but there was a sharp conflict in the evidence as to the condition in this respect when the defendant took possession. The errors complained of relate to the introduction of evidence for the defendant to the effect that there was a mutual mistake of the parties to the lease as to the condition of the premises when the defendant took possession, the giving of instructions as to the measure of damages for breach of covenant to keep the premises free from burrs, and the refusal to submit special interrogatories asked by the plaintiff.

1. The defendant pleaded as a defense that, at the time of entering into the contract of lease, it was understood and believed by both parties that the premises were free from cockle burrs, whereas, in truth and in fact they were infested with such cockle burrs, and the seeds thereof; and that there was a mutual mistake of fact with reference thereto which prevented the minds of the parties meeting in an obligatory way as to the terms of the contract. Plaintiff's objection to testimony, offered in behalf of defendant, that neither he nor the agent acting for the lessor had knowledge when the lease was executed that there were cockle burrs on the premises, was overruled. Subsequently, the plaintiff moved to strike out the evidence with reference to mutual mistake and misapprehension of this fact, as pleaded by the defendant, and this motion was overruled; but in the instructions the court withdrew the issues as to mistake and misapprehension, and directed the jury not to consider them. As nothing had intervened between the rulings on the admission of the evidence and the giving of the instructions to justify the withdrawal of the issues from the jury, if the pleading raised any such issue which could under proper evidence have been submitted, we must assume that the trial court reached the conclusion, which is insisted upon by counsel for appellant as correct, that the allegations as to mistake and misapprehension did not raise any issue proper for determination in the case, and counsel therefore insist that the ruling of the court on objections to the testimony and on the motion to strike out were erroneous and prejudicial. As to the ruling on the motion, were that the only question, we should probably have to say that it was technically correct, for the reason that by the motion plaintiff asked to have excluded from the jury not only the evidence as to the knowledge of the parties when the lease was executed with reference to the condition of the premises, but also testimony with reference to the actual condition at that time; and, as the actual condition was material on the issue as to whether defendant returned the premises in as good condition as when they were taken possession of by him, the evidence as to condition at the time possession was taken was material. But the motion did call the court's attention, before the arguments to the jury were commenced, to the insufficiency of the issue with regard to mistake and misapprehension, and by allowing counsel for the defendant to argue to the jury, as he did, the fact of mistake, the evidence on that subject was emphasized so that it is doubtful whether the instruction removed the prejudice resulting from the evidence, which it must now be conceded was improperly introduced on that subject. It is true that error in the admission of evidence has often been held to be sufficiently counteracted by an instruction to the jury not to consider the evidence thus erroneously admitted; but on the other hand, it is well settled that erroneous admission of evidence may be so fundamentally prejudicial that an instruction not to consider it will not sufficiently counteract the error. Hall v. Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co., 84 Iowa, 311, 51 N. W. 150;State v. Helm, 97 Iowa, 378, 66 N. W. 751;Jones v. United States Mut. Acc. Ass'n, 92 Iowa, 652, 61 N. W. 485;Robinson v. Cedar Rapids, 100 Iowa, 662, 69 N. W. 1064. But we have more here, on the question of whether any prejudice from the erroneous introduction of testimony was cured, than a mere abstract consideration of whether the jury were likely to disregard the evidence in view of the instruction. In support of an allegation in the motion for a new trial of misconduct of the jury, it was shown that the jurors,...