Raymond v. Pointer, 7 Div. 941.

• Decision Date: 20 March 1930
• Docket Number: 7 Div. 941.
• Citation: 220 Ala. 593,127 So. 153
• Parties: RAYMOND v. POINTER ET AL.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

127 So. 153

220 Ala. 593

RAYMOND v. POINTER ET AL.

7 Div. 941.

Supreme Court of Alabama

March 20, 1930

Appeal from DeKalb County Court; E. M. Baker, Judge.

Action for work and labor by A. C. Pointer and R. W. Lacey against Susie T. Raymond. From a judgment for plaintiffs, defendant appeals. Transferred from Court of Appeals.

Reversed and remanded.

W. B Raymond and John B. Isbell, both of Fort Payne, for appellant.

Chas J. Scott, of Fort Payne, for appellees.

SAYRE J.

Appellees had judgment against appellant for work and labor done in boring a well on the premises of the latter. The complaint was in the form of the common count for work and labor, to which was added allegation with a view to the declaration by the court of a lien on the premises. There was a demurrer to the sufficiency of the complaint in the last-mentioned aspect, but there is no need now to consider the ruling against it since the claim of a lien was not carried into the judgment for plaintiffs.

Plaintiffs bored a well one hundred and twenty-two feet deep, but defendant refused to pay for it, alleging that it was too crooked for good use-so crooked that it could not be cased. The court ruled against defendant's question to the witness Holcomb asking whether or not a well dug through forty feet of clay should be cased. The witness had been a "well driller" for six or seven years, and had cased wells. A witness may have expert knowledge of the ordinary affairs of life. The opinions of mechanics and artisans are received as evidence when they are gained by experience and acquaintance not common to others. Staples v. Steed, 167 Ala. 244, 52 So. 646, Ann. Cas. 1912A 480; Alabama Power Co. v. Talmadge, 207 Ala. 86, 93 So. 548.

The answer of the witness, in connection with his testimony that any well bored through forty feet of clay, as was the well in question, should be cased, and that a crooked well could not be cased-the expected answer should have gone to the jury as tending in a measure to elucidate the dispute as to what sort of well plaintiffs had contracted to bore. Plaintiffs adduced evidence tending to show that knowledge of the fact that the well was crooked came to defendant's husband and agent while the boring was still in progress and with that knowledge he had directed plaintiffs to go ahead, thereby waiving the alleged defect, but that waiver was disputed, and defendant was entitled to evidence of every fact...