Affirming.
The appellees, W.G. Phillips and J.B. Milam, who were the plaintiffs below, brought this action in the Daviess circuit court against the appellant, Anglo-American Mill Company, to recover for the use and occupancy of a building in Chelsea, Okla., from February 26, 1926, to December 25, 1928. They alleged in their petition, as amended, that during the month of February, 1926, the Anglo-American Mill Company instituted an action in the district court of Rogers county, Okla., against U.S. Jeffries, and others to recover possession of certain personal property consisting of mill machinery and equipment then located in the building owned by Phillips and Milam; that it sued out a writ of replevin in that action which was delivered to the sheriff of Rogers county, who took possession of the property mentioned in the writ and delivered it to the Anglo-American Mill Company; that in March, 1926, they notified it to remove the mill machinery and equipment from their building, and thereupon the Anglo-American Mill Company, acting by and through its attorney, agreed with the plaintiffs to pay them a rental of $40 a month for the use and occupancy of the building in which the machinery and equipment were then stored; that on July 11, 1926, the defendant, by its attorney, paid to the plaintiffs one month's rent amounting to $40, but no other payments were made, leaving due $1,320. *Page 247
The answer was a traverse. By agreement the case was tried by the court without the intervention of a jury. The circuit court rendered judgment against the defendant for $1,320, and it has appealed.
The trial judge found the facts to be substantially as alleged in the petition, and unless his finding of fact is palpably against the weight of the evidence, it will not be disturbed, since it must be treated as the verdict of a properly instructed jury. Hurt v. Bank of Commerce,
When the depositions were being read at the trial, the appellant orally objected to the reading of the exhibits and without specifying the grounds of objection. Sections 586 and 587 of the Civil Code of Practice must be read together. These sections provide that exceptions to depositions shall be in writing, specifying the grounds of objection, filed with the papers of the case and noted on the record; and they must be filed and noted on the record before the commencement of the trial and before or during the first term of the court after the filing of the depositions, except where they are to the competency of the witness or to the competency or relevancy of the testimony, in which cases they may be made before or during the trial. Prewitt v. Bull,
It is argued that an attorney employed to bring a replevin suit has no implied authority, after suing out a writ of replevin, to enter into an agreement on behalf of his client with one of the defendants in the replevin suit whereby the property is to remain in the building owned by the latter for which the client is to pay rent. It appears that the mill machinery and equipment had been sold to U.S. Jeffries under a conditional sales contract and Jeffries had installed it in a building owned by appellees, but the title to which was then in the Bank of Chelsea. The machinery and equipment had been listed for taxes in the name of appellant. It had been sold for taxes, and Milam and others had become the purchasers. Upon learning of this sale appellant instituted a suit for the recovery of the machinery and equipment, and a writ of replevin was sued out. Appellant was represented by W.H. Bassman, an Oklahoma attorney. Pending the outcome of the suit, which eventually found its way to the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, Anglo-American Mill Co. v. Milam,
In Fox v. William Deering Co.,
The attorney who represented appellant in the replevin suit was acting within the scope of his employment when he entered into the agreement with appellees for his client to pay a rental of $40 a month for the use of the building. It is not contended the $40 a month is an unreasonable rental for the building, and it is not shown that the property could have been moved to another building and stored at less expense. Some disposition of the property had to be made pending the determination of the title in the litigation that had just started, and the attorney under his general retainer, had the implied authority, at least in the absence from the state of his client, to take such steps as were reasonably necessary under the circumstances to store and preserve the property during the pendency of the suit.
The only witness introduced by appellant was its president and general manager, L. Freeman Little. The substance of his testimony is that appellant did not authorize the attorney who filed the replevin suit to rent appellees' building for the purpose of storing therein the machinery, the possession of which appellant was seeking under the writ of replevin. As heretofore stated, the attorney had implied authority under the circumstances to make the contract in question on behalf of his client, and the trial court properly so found.
Finding no error prejudicial to appellant's substantial rights, the judgment is affirmed. *Page 250