50 Iowa 128 | Iowa | 1878
The services in question were rendered in defending a tax title to certain lands in Nebraska which the defendant claimed to hold. The defendant’s theory was that if his title failed, he would, nevertheless, receive from the county in which the land was situated the amount paid, and a penalty of forty per cent per annum, which was about half as much as the land was worth, and accordingly the real amount involved in the case was about half the value of the land. The question objected to relates to the answer to the previous question. In the previous question the witness was asked to make an estimate upon the supposition that from eight thousand dollars to nine thousand dollars would be paid back. Having answered the question, he was asked if he took into consideration in giving the answer that from eleven thousand eight hundred dollars to fourteen thousand eight hundred dollars would be paid back. We see no reason for asking such a question. It was a departure from the previous question, and yet put to the witness for the sole purpose of obtaining a modification of the answer to that question.
III. The court found, as a fact, that the land in controversy was worth twenty thousand dollars. It is claimed that the finding is not supported by the evidence. The amount of land was nine thousand five hundred acres, and one witness, the county treasurer of the county in which the land
IY. It is assigned as error that the court omitted to find that, if the title had failed, the county in which the land was situated would have been compelled to repay the amount paid and forty per cent per annum thereon. But the referee was not specially requested to make such finding, and, in the absence of such request, we do not think it was error to omit it. The referee must be presumed to have taken into consideration whatever evidence there was as to the right to such repayment, so far as it was necessary to do so, in properly weighing the evidence as to the value of the services.
. Y. It is insisted that the amount allowed is greater than is justified by the evidence, but the evidence is conflicting.
Affirmed.