Everett v. Cole, 12463.
| Decision Date | 04 November 1929 |
| Docket Number | 12463. |
| Parties | EVERETT v. COLE. |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
In Department.
Error to District Court, Prowers County; A. F. Hollenbeck, Judge.
Action by Allyn Cole against A. E. Everett. Judgment for plaintiff and defendant brings error, and applies for supersedeas.
Affirmed.
D. B. Kinkaid, of Lamar, for plaintiff in error.
Todd & Underwood, of Lamar, for defendant in error.
These parties appeared in reverse order in the trial court, and we hereinafter refer to them thus or by name.
Plaintiff says he sold to defendant, a butcher in Lamar, Colo., 700 pounds of meat at 50 cents per pound, for which the latter refused to pay, and demands judgment accordingly. Defendant says he was not a purchaser, but plaintiff's agent to sell on commission, and that, through no fault of his nothing was sold; hence he owes nothing. A verdict was returned for plaintiff for the full amount of his demand. To review the judgment thereupon entered, defendant brings error and asks that the writ be made a supersedeas.
Cole, a member of the bar in active practice at Lamar, unmindful of the ancient saw that 'the law is a jealous mistress,' operated a ranch in the adjoining county of Baca, which is bounded on the south by the state of Oklahoma. On this ranch he kept, inter alia and intermittently, a buffalo bull. This animal, according to its owner, 'wasn't wild,' but 'didn't pay much attention to fences' and 'moved once in a while.' In the course of his resultant peregrinations he wandered into our sister jurisdiction to the south, and the opening scene of this litigation found him a prisoner in the barn of one Wash Weeks, north of Guymon, Okl. The time was the middle of December, 1927. Christmas was approaching, and plaintiff conceived the idea of adding to the general festivities and at the same time subtracting from his personal troubles by slaughtering the fugitive and selling his carcass. Thereupon he conducted such negotiations with defendant as resulted in the animal being slain in its then situs, hauled by auto trailer to Colorado, and hung in defendant's butcher shop. Some days later, and before any of the meat was sold, it was condemned by a food inspector. The evidence supports the conclusion that its condition was chargeable to defendant. Thereupon it was removed from defendant's place of business, and we see it no more.
This cause came to issue April 25, 1928, and two days later was tried to a jury, which disagreed. Seven months thereafter it was again submitted with the same result. April 22 of the present year, a third jury, perhaps mindful of the maxim, 'Interest reipublicae ut sit finis litium,' returned the verdict here in question.
The seven assignments of error amount only to the contentions that the verdict is unsupported by the evidence, and that the court gave three erroneous instructions.
The following extracts from the brief of defendant's counsel clearly disclose his untenable position on the question of evidence: 'The unreasonableness of the testimony of defendant in error is quite striking.' 'It is rather difficult to believe that the plaintiff in error * * * would agree,' etc. 'It appeals to us that that was a reasonable proposition.' What was difficult and what was easy of belief, what was reasonable and what was unreasonable in the evidence, was for the jury, not this court. These arguments are addressed to the wrong tribunal. We may think plaintiff's story unreasonable, or find it difficult of belief, but it was...
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Elstun v. People
...of justice to permit them to lie in wait and catch the court in error for the purpose of obtaining a reversal.' In Everett v. Cole, 86 Colo. 414, 282 P. 253, in error contended that, under the circumstances, there was a waiver of the requirement that he state his objections under our Rule 7......
- Wilkinson v. People