Curry v. Iowa Truck & Tractor Co.
| Decision Date | 14 March 1922 |
| Docket Number | 34382 |
| Citation | 187 N.W. 36,193 Iowa 397 |
| Parties | A. B. CURRY, Appellee, v. IOWA TRUCK & TRACTOR COMPANY, Appellant |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Polk District Court.--LESTER L. THOMPSON, Judge.
ACTION at law, for damages for breach of an oral contract for the purchase of an automobile. The answer was a general denial and a plea of prior adjudication. There was a verdict for the plaintiff and judgment thereon. The defendant has appealed.
Affirmed.
Charles F. Maxwell and James B. Ryan, for appellant.
John L Gillespie, for appellee.
The appellant presents but one assignment of error, and this is predicated upon his plea of prior adjudication. The substance of such pleading was that the material issues presented in this case were fully adjudicated by a judgment in a previous replevin suit between the same parties as hereto. Such plea was not sustained in the trial court.
The material facts, in brief, are that plaintiff purported to buy an automobile from one Thompson, as the purported agent of the defendant. This transaction was had at the plaintiff's home upon his farm. The agreed purchase price of the automobile was $ 1,950, which was then and there paid by the plaintiff to Thompson. Thompson purported to deliver the automobile to plaintiff, Curry, and left it with him, agreeing that all the requisites of the registration statute would be promptly complied with. Thereupon Thompson absconded, without accounting to his principal to any extent. The purchase price consisted of $ 250 in money or check, $ 1,000 in liberty bonds, and $ 750 in a secondhand Rambler auto. The Rambler was left on plaintiff's farm, to be called for later. Negotiation of the bonds was thwarted by telegraphic means, so that the profits of Thompson were reduced to the $ 250 check. The defendant denied the authority of Thompson to make the sale or to represent it as an agent. This issue was submitted to the jury, and found adversely to the defendant. No error is predicated thereon here. We are required, therefore, to treat the fact of agency as established.
Upon the absconding of Thompson, the defendant herein brought an action of replevin against the plaintiff herein, wherein it claimed the right of immediate possession of sad automobile, on the ground that it was the absolute and unqualified owner thereof. In defense of his right of possession, the defendant set up the same oral contract for breach of which he predicates his claim for damages in this case. So far as the proof of such contract is concerned, the evidence was the same upon the trial of both cases. At the close of the evidence in the replevin case, the replevin plaintiff (defendant herein) moved for a directed verdict upon eight grounds. The first five of these grounds were predicated upon the fact that the replevin defendant had not complied with the requirements of the registration statute, Section 18, Chapter 275, of the Acts of the Thirty-eighth General Assembly. The other grounds of the motion were, in substance, that the replevin defendant had failed to prove the allegations of the contract pleaded, and that the evidence was conclusive that the purported agent, Thompson, had no authority to make the sale. The formal judgment entry sustained the motion, and awarded possession to the replevin plaintiff, with costs. This is the judgment which is pleaded as a prior adjudication.
Though the briefs of respective counsel have gone quite fully into a general discussion of what constitutes res adjudicata, there is no material difference between them as to the general argument upon the subject, and we have no occasion to go into it. The dividing point between them is that the appellant contends that the final judgment entry is not open to any inquiry as to the grounds upon which it was based, and that it must be conclusively presumed therefrom that all the grounds of the motion were sustained; whereas, the appellee contends that the record in the replevin action discloses clearly that the motion was sustained and the judgment predicated solely upon the first five grounds of the motion, as being conclusive of the replevin plaintiff's right of possession. As already stated, these five grounds were all based upon the registration statute, one of the provisions of which is:
"Until said transferee has received said certificate of registration and has written his name upon the face thereof, delivery and title to said motor vehicle shall be deemed not to have been made and passed."
It will be seen from the foregoing that the judgment was entered upon a verdict. The scope of the verdict and of the judgment was necessarily the same. In defining the scope of the verdict, we may surely look to the instructions and the directions of the court to the jury as a guide therefor. The record at this point was as follows:
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