Light v. St. Louis & S. F. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 07 June 1886
• Citation: 1 S.W. 380,89 Mo. 108
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court
• Parties: LIGHT v. ST. LOUIS & S. F. RY. CO.

1 S.W. 380

89 Mo. 108

LIGHT v. ST. LOUIS & S. F. RY. CO.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

June 7, 1886.

ESTOPPEL — IN PAIS — PAYMENT FOR LAND.

A party who accepts and retains purchase money due on a land contract, is thereby estopped from denying that he has succeeded to the rights of the original vendor, and that the payor has likewise succeeded to the rights of the original vendee.¹

Appeal from Phelps circuit court.

Action to recover money which plaintiff, by mistake, overpaid to defendant on a land contract; plaintiff claiming that at the time of such payment he had succeeded to the rights of the original vendee, and defendant had succeeded to those of the original vendor. Defendant denied the fact of subrogation, and, judgment going against it, appealed.

A. Corse, for respondent, Thomas Light. John O'Day, for appellant, St. Louis & S. F. Ry. Co.

SHERWOOD, J.

Action instituted before a justice of the peace to recover a sum of money claimed to have been overpaid by plaintiff to defendant on a land contract, whereby land was sold by the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company to Duncan, and the contract assigned by him to Brock. Plaintiff claims as the assignee of his father, Jesse Light, who claimed as the assignee of Brock, Under the terms of the contract the payments were to be made in installments, and plaintiff, after the assignment of the contract to him, paid thereon to the defendant company, in 1879, $185. In about 10 days thereafter he received from the agent of the defendant company a statement showing the payments made from time to time to them on the contract; and in about three months thereafter he received from the defendant company a deed for the land mentioned in the contract.

1. It is wholly immaterial whether the requirements of the contract were met by the method of the assignment made to Jesse Light, since the defendant company received those payments from time to time, and thereby treated him as the lawful and rightful assignee. And the like line of remark applies to plaintiff. He made the payment as if assignee; that payment was accepted; a statement of the payments made, forwarded to plaintiff; and then a deed for the land by the defendant company. It is quite obvious that these acts on the part of the defendant company estopped it from urging the lack of any evidence showing an assumption by it of the obligations resting on the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company by reason of the original contract; and precluded the defendant company, also, for like reasons, from urging any want of strict compliance with the terms of that contract as to the method of effecting an assignment thereof. After treating Jesse Light as the assignee of the contract; after receiving his money as such; after assuming by so doing, that it was the successor to the obligations arising on the original contract; and after acting in a similar, but more pronounced, manner towards plaintiff, — it cannot withdraw from its position, and require the plaintiff to prove what, by its own acts, it has tacitly asserted and conclusively admitted.

2. As to the instructions, those given by the court of its own motion, and at the instance of the defendant, presented the matter at issue very favorably to the jury; and as to the sixth and seventh instructions asked by defendant, the refusal of the court to give them was not called to the attention of the court in the motion for a new trial, and therefore cannot be noticed.

The only point, then, left for comment, is whether, under the evidence, there was an overpayment of money made on the contract. This, of course, is a mere matter of computation, which, having been made, it is not found that the recovery by the plaintiff was unwarranted. Therefore judgment affirmed.

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