Turner v. Trail
| Decision Date | 13 July 1909 |
| Citation | 103 P. 575,24 Okla. 135,1909 OK 205 |
| Parties | TURNER v. TRAIL et al. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
Section 2305, Ind. T. Ann. St. 1899 (Mansf. Dig. Ark. § 3371) provides that: etc. Held, that subdivision 6 applies to contracts other than those relating to land only, since otherwise subdivision 5 was unnecessary.
Under section 2305, Ind. T. Ann. St. 1899 (Mansf. Dig. Ark. § 3371), subd. 5, providing that no action shall be brought on a parol lease of lands exceeding a year, a parol lease for one year to commence in the future is valid.
A contract made in the Indian Territory prior to the admission of Oklahoma as a state, valid at the time and place where made, will not be affected by the change in the form of government incident to Oklahoma becoming a state.
Error from Wagoner County Court; W. T. Drake, Judge.
Action by C. W. Turner against John Trail and others. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff brings error. Affirmed.
Chas Bagg, for plaintiff in error.
John L Sponsler and W. O. Rittenhouse, for defendants in error.
This is an action of forcible detainer of 80 acres of land, brought by plaintiff in error as plaintiff in the court below against the defendants in error, before a justice of the peace of Wagoner county. The bill of particulars alleges: That on the 6th day of February, 1907, plaintiff in error by a written contract leased the premises in controversy to the defendant Trail for the season of 1907; that at the expiration of defendant's term he and his codefendants, subtenants, refused to vacate the premises in controversy and continued to hold the same. The trial of the cause resulted in a judgment in favor of defendants, whereupon the cause was appealed to the county court of Wagoner county, and on a trial de novo, before the court without a jury, defendants again pre vailed, and judgment was rendered in their favor on the 23d day of March, 1908, to reverse which a petition in error and case-made are lodged in this court.
The defendants on the trial relied upon a parol contract alleged to have been made in the latter part of October or the first of November, 1907, under which they claimed that plaintiff, by and through his agent, leased the land involved to them for a period of one year, to begin on the 1st day of January, 1908, and to end on the 31st day of December, 1908. At the conclusion of the evidence, counsel for plaintiff requested the court to make the following declaration of law: "The court declares the law in this case to be that a parol contract for the renting or leasing of lands for a period of one year, said contract to begin at a time subsequent to the making thereof, is within the statute of frauds and cannot be enforced, and that therefore the parol contract testified and relied upon by the defendants in this case, made prior to the 1st day of January, A. D. 1908, for the year 1908, is void and not enforceable." This the court declined to do, and rendered judgment upon which defendant excepted, and herein is presented the sole question for our consideration.
The statute which obtained and controlled is section 2305, of the Annotated Statutes of 1899 of the Indian Territory (section 3371 of Mansfield's Digest of Arkansas), identical with Sand. & H. Dig. § 3469, of that state. The Supreme Court of Arkansas had occasion to pass upon the identical statute and question involved in the case at bar in the case of Higgins et al. v. Gager, 65 Ark. 604, 47 S.W. 848. The law as declared in that case in our judgment so completely, and fully meets the proposition raised herein that we feel justified in quoting at length therefrom, as follows: ...
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