Turner v. King

• Decision Date: 10 August 1920
• Docket Number: No. 2633.,2633.
• Parties: TURNER v. KING.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

224 S.W. 91

TURNER v. KING.

No. 2633.

Springfield Court of Appeals. Missouri.

August 10, 1920.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Scott County; Frank Kelly, Judge.

Action by T. M. Turner against J. B. King. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Gresham & Blanton, of Sikeston, for appellant.

Ralph E. Bailey, of Sikeston, for respondent.

STURGIS, P. J.

This plaintiff rented some land to defendant in Scott county, Mo., in the fall of 1917, to be cultivated in wheat; that is, sown that fall and harvested in 1918. The plaintiff furnished the seed wheat, and the dispute arose as to whether defendant agreed to pay for one-half of same. This suit is for one-half the value of such seed wheat and was brought in a justice court. It found its way to the circuit court, and was again tried, resulting in a judgment for defendant. By plaintiff's appeal only one question of error is presented, the admission of incompetent evidence.

There was a sharp conflict in the evidence of the respective parties. The plaintiff testified that when he rented the land to defendant there was a distinct and positive agreement that defendant was to pay for half the seed wheat. The other terms of the renting contract are not in dispute. Plaintiff had been renting this land to one Nathan Story, contracting from year to year, and had been furnishing all the seed wheat. He concluded he would raise the rent in this respect, and so informed Story in 1917. Defendant King then made a deal with Story, by which Story sold out to King, and King made a renting contract with plaintiff for the then coming year. Story corroborates plaintiff in testifying that under the renting contract King agreed to furnish or pay for one-half the seed wheat, and both deny that King was to have the land on the same terms on which plaintiff had been renting to Story. Defendant testified positively that he rented on the same terms as Story had, and that he did not agree to pay for one-half the seed wheat.

With this status of the issues the plaintiff was asked if he did not rent other land, part of the same farm, to other tenants for the same year, and he answered that he had two other tenants for the same year. He was then asked if he rented to them on the same terms as to this defendant. This was objected to as "utterly immaterial." The objection was overruled, and plaintiff answered, "Yes." Thereupon defendant placed on the witness stand one of such other tenants, Mr. Bradley, and over repeated objections of plaintiff proceeded to prove by him that he did not agree to, and did not, pay for or furnish one-half the seed wheat for that year sowed on his land. He said he had nothing to do with, and knew nothing about, the rent contract between plaintiff and King.

This was error, since it was not competent to prove the terms of plaintiff's contract with defendant, by proving the terms of a distinct and independent contract by plaintiff with a third person. A landlord has a right to make different contracts with different tenants for the...