45 Ga. App. 826 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1932
1. This being a suit to recover of the defendant upon his alleged obligation on a check made payable to the plaintiff and which had not been paid, where the defendant pleaded that the check had been given by him in consideration of an option to purchase the capital stock in a railroad, that the defendant was induced to buy the option by alleged false and fraudulent representations respecting the character and physical condition of the railroad made by an alleged agent of the plain
2. Under the above ruling the court did not err in the charge, or in the exclusion of evidence, where error was assigned upon the ground that there was no evidence of fraud or of agency of the alleged agent.
3. Although there was no evidence to authorize an inference that the defendant executed the contract under duress, a charge that where a contract is procured by duress it is void, while not adapted to the evidence, was not harmful to the plaintiff.
4. There being evidence that the alleged letter from the president of the corporation releasing the defendant from his obligation under the option contract had become lost, and it appearing from the evidence of a witness offered to prove the contents of the letter by parol that he had seen it and recognized the signature of the president of the corporation thereto' and knew its contents, the court, in admitting the evidence, did not err upon the ground that it did not appear that the letter had been signed by the president of the plaintiff corporation. Also where evidence of other witnesses as to the contents of the letter had been admitted, it was, if error, harmless to admit other parol evidence as to the contents of the letter because, in the language of the witness, the letter stated that “if” certain representations therein made by the defendant were true, the defendant was released.
5. An objection to the testimony of the defendant, that as a result of the negotiations had by him with the alleged agent, the option was executed, made upon the ground that the evidence sought by parol to vary the terms of the option contract, which was in writing, is without merit. The option contract was in evidence, and the admission of any parol evidence as to its contents which did not appear to contradict it was, if error, harmless.
6. Evidence that the president of the corporation who had executed the option contract, and who was dead, had stated that he ha'd not written a letter as alleged by the defendant releasing the defendant from the option, was hearsay and inadmissible, and was properly excluded.
7. The evidence authorized the verdict found for the defendant, and no error appears.
Judgment aJU-med.