Johnson v. Watland

• Decision Date: 12 November 1929
• Docket Number: 39823
• Parties: CHARLES JOHNSON, Appellee, v. G. O. WATLAND et al., Appellants
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

227 N.W. 410

208 Iowa 1370

CHARLES JOHNSON, Appellee, v. G. O. WATLAND et al., Appellants

No. 39823

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

November 12, 1929

Appeal from Poweshiek District Court.--J. G. PATTERSON, Judge.

Action to recover against Jake Weber, as maker, and G. O. Watland and I. S. Rasmussen, as endorsers, of a promissory note payable to Watland and Rasmussen, and bearing the indorsement "Watland and Rasmussen." Judgment for plaintiff. The endorsers, Watland and Rasmussen, appeal.

Reversed.

J. H Patton, for I. S. Rasmussen, appellant.

J. G Shifflett, for G. O. Watland, appellant.

Rayburn & Rayburn, for appellee.

MORLING J. ALBERT, C. J., and STEVENS, DE GRAFF, and GRIMM, JJ concur.

OPINION

MORLING, J.

The note sued upon was given at a public farm sale held by the endorsers, Watland, the landlord, and Rasmussen, the tenant. The note was taken by the clerk at the sale, and, as appellants contend, was, without authority, made payable to "Watland and Rasmussen," and indorsed by Rasmussen with the name "Watland Rasmussen," in order to get the proceeds of the sale. The contention of the plaintiff, as we understand, is that the note was taken in the prosecution of a joint adventure between Watland and Rasmussen, and that they have, by not returning the proceeds of the note, ratified it and its indorsement.

Watland (first party) leased to Rasmussen (second party) a farm "at the rent of share rent as below specified as follows to wit, second party hereto to furnish work horses * * * to conduct said farm. Each party hereto to furnish one half of all other stock and bear equal expense connected with the conducting of said farm and to share equally in the increase of all stock * * * or anything else produced on said premises, second party to furnish all help necessary in the conducting of said farm free of charge to party of the first part, said premises to be used for general farming." Then follow ordinary provisions in reference to payment of rent, farming operations, care of premises, etc., to be observed by the tenant.

Plaintiff alleges in his petition that the defendants were partners. At the conclusion of the evidence, he asked leave to amend his reply, alleging that the enterprise between Watland and Rasmussen was one of joint adventure. Whether plaintiff means that the joint adventure was in the farming operations or in the sale, or both, is not clear. Under the well established rule in this state, the relationship between appellants as the result of the contract of lease was one of landlord and tenant, and not of partnership or joint adventure. In re Estate of Schultz, 196 Iowa 125, 194 N.W. 242; Kelley v. Kelley, 189 Iowa 311, 177 N.W. 45; Taylor v. Successful Farm. Pub. Co., 197 Iowa 618, 196 N.W. 77. The property sold was jointly owned by appellants, under the lease, and the sale, though advertised in the name of "Watland and Rasmussen," was merely a sale of their joint property, for the purpose of converting it into money in closing up the tenancy. It was in no sense a venture.

Burroughs clerked the sale. Watland testified, without contradiction that he (Watland) employed his bank to clerk the sale, under an arrangement by which the bank was to take the notes and pay the cash. Asked, "Were you to sell the notes or to indorse them?" he answered, "I was not to have anything to do with it." He had nothing to do with Burroughs, and "never authorized Mr. Burroughs or anyone else to sell any notes taken at that sale." Burroughs at first testified that Rasmussen requested him to clerk the sale, but, Rasmussen having testified that he did not, Burroughs said he couldn't be sure whether the bank asked him to clerk it; that "they might have spoken to me about it; it happened once in a while that, when such business came to the bank, they would ask me to clerk it for them." Burroughs testified, "I had planned to place these notes before the sale. I did not take the notes myself." Asked in behalf of plaintiff, "In clerking the sale, Mr. Burroughs, were you acting for anyone except yourself, as clerk,--were you employed by anyone except the defendants?" he answered, "I was acting for myself alone." Burroughs also says that, for a considerable time after the note was purchased by plaintiff, it was in his (Burroughs's)...