Stevens v. Bradley

• Decision Date: 10 October 1893
• Citation: 56 N.W. 429,89 Iowa 174
• Parties: STEVENS v. BRADLEY ET AL.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

89 Iowa 174

56 N.W. 429

STEVENS

v.BRADLEY ET AL.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Oct. 10, 1893.

Appeal from district court, Appanoose county; E. L. Burton, Judge.

Action at law to recover damages for breach of warranty and fraud and deceit in the sale of hogs by defendants to the plaintiff. There was a trial by jury, verdict, and judgment for the plaintiff. Defendants appeal.T. M. Fee, for appellants.

Tannehill, Vermillion & Vermillion, for appellee.

ROTHROCK, J.

On the 20th day of October, 1889, the defendants sold some 320 hogs at public sale. The plaintiff bid off and purchased 27 of said hogs, for which he gave his promissory note for $114. He claims that at the time of the sale said hogs were sick and infected with a contagious disease known as “hog cholera,” by reason of which disease 25 of them died, and the other 2 became of no value. This action was brought on the 26th day of July, 1890, and the petition is in two counts. In the first count it is claimed that the defendants warranted said hogs to be sound and healthy and free from disease, and recovery is demanded because of an illegal breach of said warranty. In another count it is claimed that the defendants at the time of the sale represented to the plaintiff and others that said hogs were sound and healthy and free from disease, and that said representations were false and fraudulent, because said hogs were not sound and healthy, but were then infected with hog cholera, and that at the time said representations were made the defendants knew that the same were false, and that the plaintiff relied thereon, and was induced thereby to purchase 27 of said hogs, to his damage. In short, the petition is an action for damages for breach of warranty, and for fraud and deceit in the sale of the hogs. The answer was a denial of every allegation of the petition, except the averment that the plaintiff purchased 27 hogs of the defendants. The trial was commenced on the 26th day of September, 1890, and was continued from day to day until October 3d, when the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff for $400. The public sale appears to have been largely attended, and the lot of hogs was known to many persons before the sale. A large number of witnesses were examined by the respective parties, and experts and nonexperts on the disease known as “hog cholera” were examined at great length. Some 35 witnesses were examined by the plaintiff, and as many by the defendants. We have examined all of this evidence with care, because it is claimed with great confidence that the verdict of the jury was clearly contrary to the evidence on the trial of the whole case. From the statement above made as to the great number of witnesses examined on the trial, it is apparent that we cannot, in the space properly allowable for the opinion, review the evidence in detail. There are some facts about which there is no real conflict. One of the most important of these is that within a very short time after the sale the disease known as “hog cholera” attacked not only the hogs purchased by the plaintiff, but the separate lots of nearly every other purchaser at the sale. There is no doubt in our minds that the jury were fully warranted in finding that the disease was in the lot of hogs when the sale was made. And here we may say that the court correctly instructed the jury that if the “said hogs had the seeds or germs of...