Jackson v. Bloodworth, 19503.

• Decision Date: 28 February 1930
• Docket Number: No. 19503.,19503.
• Citation: 41 Ga.App. 216,152 S.E. 289
• Parties: JACKSON . v. BLOODWORTH.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

41 Ga.App. 216

152 S.E. 289

JACKSON .

v.BLOODWORTH.

No. 19503.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No. 2.

Feb. 28, 1930.

Syllabus by the Court.

Error from Superior Court, Bibb County; Malcolm D. Jones, Judge.

Suit by H. B. Bloodworth against Zadie Jackson. Judgment for plaintiff, defendant's certiorari was overruled, and defendant brings error.

Reversed.

E. F. Goodrum, of Macon, for plaintiff in error.

Luther U. Bloodworth, of Macon, for defendant in error.

STEPHENS, J.

This is a suit by H. B. Bloodworth against Zadie Jackson, to recover damages for the alleged conversion by the defendant to his own use of $24 to which the plaintiff claimed title by virtue of an assignment by the defendant to the plaintiff of the defendant's wages in the employ of the Central of Georgia Railway Company from the first to the eleventh of May, 1928, which the defendant collected and appropriated to his own use and refused to pay to the plaintiff.

The defendant filed a plea in which he virtually admitted the allegations of fact in the plaintiff's petition, by alleging that on or about December 24, 1927, he borrowed $20 of the plaintiff, and since then paid the plaintiff interest on this loan in periodic installments of $4 about every two weeks, the last payment of $4 being made on May 12, 1928, and the total payments thus made amounting to $36, that the alleged assignment was a scheme and device of the plaintiff to loan money at a usurious rate of interest, and that the plaintiff was paid in full the principal of $20 borrowed money and the lawful interest thereon from December 24,

1927, to May 12, 1928. The defendant further alleged that by these payments he overpaid the plaintiff in the sum of $15, and he prayed a judgment against the plaintiff in that amount

The plaintiff testified as follows: "At time this paper was made Zadie had a similar paper at my office, which he settled that day. He had a similar transaction to this one with me each month back to January 11, 1928, except in the month of February,

1928, I cannot trace anything with him in February, but I will not say positively he did not have a similar transaction with me in February. The amounts in each case was $24.00. He would sell me $24.00 of his wages for $20.00, but he did not pay me interest on any of the money. He did not pay me !$4.00 when this paper was made. He settled the paper we held and I made a new contract. This new contract had nothing to do with the old paper he settled, that was all paid off first and the new contract followed. As soon as he paid off the old paper the new one was made. I usually waited on Zadie at my office. There is another clerk there, Mr. C. J. Heath, he might have handled the February transactions. * * * The assignment in each case was for $20; that Is, Zadie got $20 and gave me an assignment for $24.00. The $4 was my profit on the transaction. Those papers were due at my office on Zadie's following paydays. He was paid off twice a month. I never demanded the money on this assignment from railway company." The defendant testified as follows: "Just about last Christmas (1927) I borrowed $20 from Mr. Bloodworth and signed a paper like this assignment. He charged me $4 interest on that loan, payable on my next pay-day on January 11, 1928. I paid him $4 on Jan. 11th, 1928, and renewed the loan by signing a paper like this one, and paid $4 interest in his office to Mr. Bloodworth on the pay days for Jan. 26th the 11th and 26th days of February, March, April and on May 12th, 1928 for May 11th. I never had the $20 but the one time and that was just before Christmas. I have paid him all told $36 on the loan. * * * I never paid him $24 at any one time during the time stated that I paid him interest, only paid him interest charged."

The defendant's testimony is clear and unequivocal that when he made this assignment of his wages from May 1 to May 11 he received nothing whatever from the plaintiff as a consideration therefor, that the only money he ever received from the plaintiff was the $20 which the plaintiff paid him in consideration of the assignment of salary about Christmas 1927, that the defendant has never paid the plaintiff $24 at any one time, that the only payments which he has made to the plaintiff were the $36 payable in the $4 installments, on the pay days mentioned. The plaintiff's testimony is somewhat vague and equivocal. It is subject to the objection that he appears to be testifying to his own conclusions rather than to actual facts within his knowledge. He does not deny the fact to which the defendant testified, that the defendant was paid nothing in consideration of the assignment of the salary from May 1 to May 11 which is the basis of the present suit. While the plaintiff testified that the defendant,...