Streblow v. Sylvester

• Decision Date: 06 February 1923
• Docket Number: No. 35101.,35101.
• Citation: 195 Iowa 168,191 N.W. 788
• Parties: STREBLOW ET AL. v. SYLVESTER ET AL.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

195 Iowa 168

191 N.W. 788

STREBLOW ET AL.

v.SYLVESTER ET AL.

No. 35101.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Feb. 6, 1923.

Appeal from District Court, Wapello County; Francis M. Hunter, Judge.

Action by a landlord for rent, aided by attachment. Verdict and judgment of plaintiff. Defendant appeals. Affirmed.Gillies & Daugherty, of Ottumwa, for appellants.

A. W. Enoch and Roberts & Simmer, all of Ottumwa, for appellees.

STEVENS, J.

Appellants occupied a farm belonging to appellee Adelia Streblow, as tenants, for several successive years, including 1921, paying an annual rental of $1,500; $500 March 1, $500, September 1st, and $500 December 1st in each year. This appeal is from a judgment in two actions consolidated for the purpose of the trial; one for $200 claimed to be due as a balance on the rent for 1920, and one for $1,500 for 1921. Appellants admitted the tenancy for both years and set up a joint plea of payment.

[1] I. By way of amendment to their answer, appellants alleged that these actions were commenced as a part, and in pursuance, of a general wicked scheme to blackmail and extort money from them, and that same is the result of a conspiracy between appellees for that purpose. These allegations of the amendment to appellants' answer were stricken on motion of appellees. Upon the trial, appellants offered to prove that appellees had commenced actions against different parties upon claims and notes that had been previously paid. The offer of this testimony, upon objection of counsel for appellees, was rejected. Error is alleged in the ruling of the court upon the motion to strike and in the exclusion of the offered testimony. Both actions, as stated, are for rent; whereas, the offered evidence was of wholly unrelated transactions of an entirely different character. The rule announced in Henderson v. Ball (Iowa) 186 N. W. 668, that similar acts of the defendant in dealing with others at or about the time, involving transactions of the same general character, is admissible where fraud is charged as bearing upon the question of intent, is not applicable here. The fact that appellees had unsuccessfully prosecuted actions of a wholly dissimilar character against others at different times could have no bearing upon their good faith in the prosecution of these actions for rent. The ruling of the court was right.

[2] II. Both appellants testified that $700 of the 1921 rent was paid to L. F. Streblow on July 11, 1921, in $100 bills. Fred Miller and Otto Bandel, called by appellees, were permitted to testify that T. B. Sylvester said in their presence that this payment was made in bonds. Objection was interposed to the testimony of these witnesses upon the ground that no proper foundation had been laid for impeachment. The objections were properly overruled. Sylvester was a party to the record, and his admissions and declarations were admissible without a foundation being laid for impeachment. Conway v. Nicol, 34 Iowa, 533;Browning v. Gosnell, 91 Iowa, 448, 59 N. W. 340.

[3][4] III. Appellants thereafter offered to prove by various witnesses that Sylvester on other occasions had explained that in using the word “bonds” he meant greenbacks, government notes, or bank money. The testimony of these witnesses did not refer to any of the occasions or conversations...