Hyden v. Calames

• Decision Date: 15 December 1914
• Citation: 161 Ky. 593,171 S.W. 186
• Parties: HYDEN v. CALAMES.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

171 S.W. 186

161 Ky. 593

HYDEN v. CALAMES.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

December 15, 1914

Appeal from Circuit Court, Breathitt County.

Action by Henson Calames against E. C. Hyden and others. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant Hyden appeals. Affirmed.

Florence McGuire, of Jackson, for appellant.

Leonidas Y. Redwine, of West Liberty, for appellee.

NUNN J.

The appellee, Henson Calames, is a colored man 75 years old and unable to read or write. In 1907, having saved up about $1,100, he decided to buy a home. The Kentucky Sawmill Company, an Ohio corporation, owned 232 acres of land in Breathitt county which it desired to sell, having already cut the timber. In July of 1907, Mr. Bartles, its chief officer in Breathitt county, executed a writing, agreeing to convey the tract in fee simple to appellee on September 1st, upon payment of $1,100 in cash, with the right to cancel the contract in ten days if disapproved of by the home office. The corporation, approving the trade, sent a deed to a bank in Breathitt county and notified Calames to get it. He went to the bank in company with Bartles. The deed, or a part of it, was read to Calames by Bartles. Calames paid the money took the deed, and on the way home met a friend, who examined the deed, and Calames discovered for the first time that it did not convey to him the coals and oil underlying the land. Calames says that no mention of this reservation was made when Bartles read the deed to him. The next morning he went back to town, found Bartles, tendered the deed, and demanded his money. Bartles told him that his money was gone, that is he had sent it to the company in Ohio. It seems that the sawmill company was winding up its business in this state and had no other visible property. Calames took possession of the place, made some improvements, but put his case in the hands of a lawyer. This lawyer testifies that he was prepared to bring suit to reform or cancel the deed when, in about six months, he saw Bartles, and Bartles told him not to bring suit; that it would be unnecessary, as his company would make no claim to the oil or minerals. Subsequently, the appellant Hyden, recovered a judgment against the sawmill company for $294, and, in searching the records to find some estate out of which the judgment might be collected, he discovered this reservation in the Calames deed, and caused the sheriff to levy an execution. This suit was brought by Calames to...