A. J. Ward & Co. v. Clarkson

• Decision Date: 01 January 1869
• Court: Texas Supreme Court
• Parties: A. J. WARD & CO. v. BLEDSOE & CLARKSON.

32 Tex. 251

A. J. WARD & CO.

v.BLEDSOE & CLARKSON.

Supreme Court of Texas.

1869.

1. This court, in the present case, takes occasion to deplore the want in our courts of an officer similar to a commissioner in chancery, to audit and adjust complicated mutual accounts between litigants, and report results to the court.

2. It has been the constant and unvarying practice of this court never to disturb the verdict of a jury, if at the trial any evidence was adduced on which it could have been found.

3. It is only in cases where the verdict appears, at first blush, to be palpably wrong, oppressive, unjust, and subversive of legal right, that a court is justified in setting it aside, unless there has been misdirection of the jury by the court.

4. Under our system all suits may be maintained or defended on the principles both of law and equity; and, in consequence, much greater latitude is given to our courts in their instructions to juries than is tolerated under a common law system.

5. Factors, being special owners of property consigned to them, when the transit is complete, may make a valid sale of the property to third parties; and, if not specially instructed by their principals as to time or terms of sale, they are not liable to imputation of bad faith for selling it at the lowest ebb of the market, unless they purposely ignored intelligence of a probable rise in prices.

APPEAL from Falls. Tried below before the Hon. A. J. Evans.

Ward & Co., the appellants, sued Bledsoe & Clarkson, the appellees, who were a mercantile firm of Falls county, on an alleged indebtedness of $2,934, balance due on account.

The defendants pleaded in reconvention, and the jury returned a verdict in their favor for $1,972.50.

There is a large mass of evidence in the record, but, in view of the grounds taken in the opinion of this court, there seems to be no object in stating the facts minutely.

The plaintiffs' motion for a new trial being overruled, they appealed.

Flint, Chamberlin & Graham, for the appellants.

Herring & Anderson, for the appellees.

LINDSAY, J.

This action was brought by the appellants upon an account current, to which a plea in reconvention was interposed by the appellees, alleging that they had consigned a large amount of cotton to the appellants, as their factors and agents in Galveston, to put in market to sell, and to make them due returns of sales; that the cotton was received by their factors, or commission merchants, and sold; and that the proceeds were greatly in excess of any just demands which the appellants held against them; but that they had exhibited false and fraudulent accounts of sales, by which the apparent balance against them in the account current was created.

Upon the trial the jury found a verdict in favor of the plea in reconvention, and assessed damages against the appellants. Their motion for a new trial being overruled by the court, they gave notice of appeal.

The record is quite voluminous, and the facts are of such a character as would awaken in the mind of every enlightened jurist, who might be compelled, from a sense of duty, to probe and sift them, a feeling of regret, that no such officer as a commissioner in chancery is provided by law to audit and adjust such mutual claims, and to present the results by report, in condensed form, so that the legal rights of the parties might be the more easily, the more readily, the more justly, and the more satisfactorily determined. Cases are frequently occurring, which make manifest such a want. No rational mind can doubt that such an officer would be much better fitted and qualified to investigate such matters, and to arrive at just conclusions, than juries in the hurried dispatch of public trials. It is almost impossible so to conduct such investigations before a jury as to render the final results in complete harmony with perfect justice. This defect is to be deplored as one of the infirmities of judicial administration under our system.

Still, the...