Opinion
April 22, 1952.
Appeal from the Circuit Court, Sumter County, T.G. Futch, J.
Garland W. Spencer, Sanford, for appellants.
P.B. Howell, J.C. Getzen, Jr., and Carroll W. Fussell, Bushnell, for appellee.
This is an appeal from a final decree.
One phase of this case has been before this Court and we rendered an opinion reported in Fla., 54 So.2d 193, 195. It appeared that the time for taking testimony had expired without any extension having been made. We remanded the case with directions to the court below to hear the same on the pleadings. In that opinion we said:
"At such a hearing all the proper allegations of the bill not sufficiently denied by the answer are to be taken as true and all allegations in the answer of new or affirmative matter are to be deemed denied. Moreover, where issues are made by denials in the answer, the decision at the hearing must be against the party who has the burden of proof according to the rules of evidence."
It appears that the court below has carefully followed the opinion which we rendered.
A supplement to the bill of complaint filed by the appellants stated:
"* * * and that said plaintiff is ready, willing and able to comply with all the terms of said partnership agreement and whenever an accounting has been made the plaintiff is ready, willing and able to pay to the defendants any and all sums of money due to said defendants by him, and that he knows of no other ways that he can come into equity with clean hands." (Emphasis supplied.)
In the answer filed by the appellee, he stated:
"* * * and defendants say that they are still willing, regardless of the numerous breaches of the agreement made by the plaintiff, to convey unto the plaintiff an undivided one half interest in and to said lands, when, as, and if the plaintiff pays unto these defendants one-half of the costs of said lands, fencing and improvements thereon and expenses connected therewith, less any and all receipts for sales of timber and cross ties received by plaintiff, one-half of which should be credited to defendants and received by defendants, one-half of which has heretofore been credited by defendants to plaintiff, and defendants say that they stand ready, able and willing to do equity in the premises and that they have at all times in the past stood ready, able and willing so to do."
No good purpose could be served by a recital of the allegations, denials admissions and burden of proof as revealed by the pleadings, and upon which the final decree was based. It is sufficient to say that the application of the rule which we announced in our former opinion, upon the hearing on bill and answer, fully justified the decree appealed from. The appellants received by virtue of the final decree everything to which they were entitled and in one instance probably more than they were entitled to. However, they cannot complain and the appellee does not complain.
The pleadings and the final decree have been carefully examined and we find no reversible error in the record.
Affirmed.
SEBRING, C.J., and CHAPMAN and THOMAS, JJ., concur.