Steele v. Crabtree
| Decision Date | 04 April 1906 |
| Citation | 106 N.W. 753,130 Iowa 313 |
| Parties | A. L. STEELE, Appellee, v. C. H. CRABTREE, Appellant |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Polk District Court.--HON. JAMES A. HOWE, Judge.
Reversed.
Read & Read and W. G. Clarke and Warren Walker, for appellant.
Carr Hewitt, Parker & Wright, for appellee.
The plaintiff's petition is at law, and states his claim in two counts. In the first count he alleges the performance of various services at the request of defendant, and the payment and expenditure of various sums of money on account of the defendant, to an aggregate amount of $ 578.84, on which he concedes that defendant is entitled to credits in the aggregate sum of $ 517.04 leaving a balance due and unpaid to the plaintiff of $ 65.80. In the second count plaintiff alleges that in April, 1900, he entered into an oral agreement with defendant, whereby he undertook and agreed to assist defendant in the promotion of a certain gold mining company, which was, in fact, thereafter organized and known as the "Gladiator Consolidated Gold Mines & Milling Company." He further alleges that, in pursuance of said agreement, he did enter upon said business, and continued therein until December 1, 1902; that by the terms of said agreement, defendant bound himself to pay or deliver to the plaintiff for the services so rendered, 26,666 shares, of the par value of $ 1.00, of the capital stock of the mining company aforesaid; but, on demand duly made therefor defendant has failed and refused to deliver the said shares of stock, and otherwise perform his said promise and agreement. Plaintiff further alleges that at the date of his said demand the said stock was worth 50 cents per share, and he asks judgment against the defendant therefor in the sum of $ 13,333. The answer denies each of these several claims asserted by plaintiff. It admits that plaintiff did undertake and agree to render certain services in promoting a mining company for which service when completed, and when the company was on a paying basis, he was to receive in full compensation, 10,000 shares of the company's stock, and no more. It further charges that said company has never been established on a paying basis, and that plaintiff was unfaithful to the trust reposed in him, in that he failed to keep correct books or to make correct account of the moneys coming into his hands by virtue of his employment; that he wrongfully caused a large number of the shares of the company's stock to be issued to himself, and appropriated to his own use the moneys of the company. In a separate count defendant further pleads these various alleged wrongful acts and omissions together with others of a similar nature as a basis of a counterclaim upon which a judgment is asked against the plaintiff. On trial to a jury a verdict was rendered in favor of plaintiff in the sum of $ 6,866.22. Defendant's motion for new trial having been denied, judgment was rendered on the verdict, February 23, 1904, and the defendant appeals therefrom.
After the entry of the judgment aforesaid and during the same year the defendant filed a petition for a new trial based upon the alleged discovery of new and material evidence to sustain his defense to the plaintiff's claim. The substance of the showing thus made was to the effect that upon an expert examination of the accounts of the mining company, and of the defendant as kept by the plaintiff, there were newly discovered large deficits for which the plaintiff was responsible, as well as acts of unfaithfulness to the trust reposed in him. Upon trial to the court, the petition was denied, and from this ruling, the defendant also appeals. The record, as presented to this court, is very voluminous, but our views upon some of the questions raised render it unnecessary for us to go into a minute examination of all the issues of fact involved in the controversy.
I. It is argued on behalf of appellant that the trial court failed to submit to the jury all the issues raised by the pleadings. From the statement already made it will be noted that the defendant's answer alleges that plaintiff's services were rendered under an agreement by which they were to be paid for in shares of stock to be issued to him after the mining company had been organized, and its business established upon a paying basis. This was in the nature of a plea in abatement, and there was evidence tending to sustain it. The trial court ignored the issue, and gave the jury no instruction in reference thereto. In this there was error. Whatever may have been the reason for such a stipulation, whether designed to stimulate and insure faithful service on plaintiff's part or for some purpose undisclosed by the record, nothing is shown to indicate that such an agreement was either void or voidable. It was the right of the defendant to have the issue submitted to the jury with the instruction that if the contract of employment was made on the terms alleged in the answer and the business of the company had never been established upon a paying basis, then the plaintiff's claim for compensation was not yet due, and he could recover nothing thereon in this action.
Objection is further made that the court misstated the issue joined upon the first count of the petition. The jury was told among other things, that of plaintiff's bill of charges of $ 582.84, stated in the first count of the petition the sum of $ 517.04 was not in controversy, and that the amount in controversy was only $ 65.80. In a certain sense this instruction is correct, for the plaintiff claims and asks judgment on this branch of his case for $ 65.80, and no more. But in another and more obvious sense the proposition is misleading. The plaintiff's claim on this count is based on something more than a hundred different items and charges aggregating $ 578.84, and the jury could readily and properly understand from the court's instructions that these charges were all admitted by the defendant, except as to the amount of $ 65.80 demanded by the plaintiff. On the contrary,...
To continue reading
Request your trial