Hart v. Patterson

• Decision Date: 26 June 1928
• Docket Number: No. 38181.,38181.
• Citation: 220 N.W. 58
• Parties: HART v. PATTERSON ET AL.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

220 N.W. 58

HART

v.PATTERSON ET AL.

No. 38181.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

June 26, 1928.

Appeal from District Court, Allamakee County; H. E. Taylor, Judge.

Suit by a landlord against a tenant under a combined sale and renting contract, claiming of the defendant $5,480.90. The defense was that defendants did not receive certain of the property, and that the balance had been transferred back to plaintiff, and 11 separate and distinct counterclaims interposed at various times during the trial. There was a judgment in favor of the plaintiff for $2,770.60, from which the defendants appeal. Affirmed.A. J. Eaton, of Waukon, and E. R. Acres, of Decorah, for appellants.

Wm. S. Hart and A. E. Sheridan, both of Waukon, for appellee.

ALBERT, J.

In the early part of the year 1920, plaintiff and defendants entered into a contract for the renting of a 280-acre farm owned by the plaintiff. Defendants moved on the farm in March, 1920, and occupied the same until April, 1922, when the farm was leased to a third party. Under the terms of the lease, defendants were to furnish certain stock and machinery then owned by them, plaintiff was to furnish other stock, machinery, etc., which he owned, and plaintiff, also sold to defendants certain personal property; all of these various kinds of property being described in schedules attached to the lease. The contract, in some respects, was a partnership contract between the plaintiff and the defendants as to the renting of the farm, the rentals, divisions of property, and profits, etc.

Plaintiff's claim, roughly stated, was that he received nothing from the defendant from said farm, and, in addition, had financed the defendants in conducting the farm aside from the rental provided for in the lease. When the time arrived for defendants to leave the farm, certain of the personal property on the farm was turned over to Otto S. Kuhn, the succeeding tenant, and for such property Kuhn made settlement with plaintiff. A large part of the personal property that was originally covered by the lease contract had disappeared, and plaintiff sued out an attachment, which was served in an adjoining county. Certain of the personal property that was covered by this lease was loaded for transportation into railroad cars and shipped by the defendants to a man by the name of B. F. Barthell. This property was later impounded by reason of the attachment proceedings herein.

As above stated, on the trial the court rendered judgment in favor of the plaintiff in the amount stated. This case was pending about four years before it was tried, and, when called for trial, a motion for change of venue was filed, based on a charge of prejudice against the presiding judge. This motion was accompanied by certain affidavits, the makers of which, aside from the parties to the litigation, were called into court and on examination their respective testimony shows that the affidavits were false, and that th...