Bottles v. Miller

14 N.E. 728, 112 Ind. 584, 1887 Ind. LEXIS 451
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 22, 1887
DocketNo. 13,692
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 14 N.E. 728 (Bottles v. Miller) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bottles v. Miller, 14 N.E. 728, 112 Ind. 584, 1887 Ind. LEXIS 451 (Ind. 1887).

Opinion

Howk, J.

This suit was commenced by appellee, as sole plaintiff, against appellants and a number of other persons, as defendants, on the 12th day of February, 1883. Appellee’s complaint counted upon a promissory note for $287.50, dated April 18th, 1859, and payable twelve months after date to the order of appellee, and, also, a mortgage alleged to have been executed on the same date by the defendants to the plaintiff herein, on certain real estate in Harrison county, Indiana, to secure the payment of such note. The cause was put at issue and heard by the court, and a finding was made for appellee substantially in accordance with the prayer of his complaint; and, over the separate motions of the [585]*585appellants, Bottles and Keller, for a new trial or hearing herein, the court rendered judgment and decree for appellee upon and in accordance with its finding herein.

In this court, appellants, Bottles and Keller, have separately assigned a number of errors, and these errors we will consider, and decide the questions thereby presented, in the same order in which their counsel have discussed them in their elaborate brief of this cause. We may premise that the defence relied upon by each of the appellants in their separate pleadings herein was the statute of limitations, or, in other words, that the cause of action stated in appellee’s complaint did not accrue within twenty years prior to the commencement of this suit.

■ The first error complained of here by appellant Eliza Bottles is the overruling of her separate demurrer to the first paragraph of appellee’s reply to the second, third and fourth paragraphs of her separate answer herein. Appellee’s complaint counted, as we have said, upon a joint and several promissory note for $287.50, purporting to have been executed on the 18th day of April, 1859, by appellants John Keller and Eliza Bottles, and by Eebecca Keller and Jacob Bottles, and to have been made payable twelve months after date to the order of William J. Miller, appellee here .and plaintiff below, and also upon a mortgage purporting to have been executed and acknowledged by the makers of such note, and recorded in the proper recorder’s office on the same date therewith, and to secure the payment thereof. In her second paragraph of answer appellant Eliza Bottles said that the cause of action stated in appellee’s complaint did not accrue within twenty years next before the commencement of this action; in the third paragraph of her separate answer she alleged that appellee’s cause of action for the foreclosure of the mortgage sued upon did not accrue within such twenty years; and in the fourth paragraph of her separate answer she averred that appellee’s cause of action upon the note in [586]*586suit did not accrue within the twenty years next before the commencement of this action.

In the first paragraph of his reply to the second, third and fourth paragraphs of the separate answer of Eliza Bottles, appellee, Miller, alleged ■ that at the time she executed the note sued upon Eliza Bottles was a married woman, and such note as to her was void; that Jacob Bottles afterwards died, and left no estate out of which any part of such note could be made, and Rebecca Keller had since died, leaving no property out of which any part of such note could be made; that, before the expiration of the twenty years, to wit, on the 17th day of April, 1879, John Keller made a payment on the note in suit, and, shortly afterwards, left the State of Indiana, and had been at all times since a non-resident of this State.

In his second paragraph of reply to the second, third and fourth paragraphs of Eliza Bottles’ separate answer, appellee, Miller, averred that, at the time Eliza Bottles signed the note in suit, she was a married woman, and was not personally liable on such note; that afterwards Jacob Bottles and Rebecca Keller, makers of such note, both died, leaving no property out of which any part of the note could be made; and that, before twenty years had expired from the time appellee’s cause of action had accrued, John Keller left the State of Indiana and became a non-resident of this State, and had since continued to be a non-resident thereof.

Appellant Eliza Bottles demurred to each of these replies, upon the ground that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a good reply to the second, third and fourth paragraphs of her separate answer herein. These demurrers were each overruled by the court below, and these rulings constitute tlie first and second errors whereof complaint is here made by and on behalf of appellant Eliza Bottles.

We are of opinion that the court below clearly erred in each of the rulings complained of, and that the facts stated by appellee in either paragraph of his reply did not, and [587]*587could not, in the nature of things, defeat or stay the operation of the statute of limitations pleaded and relied upon by Eliza Bottles, in each of the second, third and fourth paragraphs of her separate answer, as an absolute bar of appellee’s supposed cause of action against her, founded on .the note and mortgage described in his complaint herein. Under the code,' each of such replies was clearly bad on the demurrer thereto, because, as we have often held, it did not respond to all the paragraphs of answer to which the reply on its face was addressed. Thus, the replies were addressed to the second, third and fourth paragraphs of the separate answer of Eliza Bottles.

In such second paragraph of her answer she pleaded the statute of limitations in bar of appellee’s action upon both the note and mortgage sued upon, and in the fourth paragraph of such answer she pleaded the statute in bar only of his action upon the mortgage in suit. But in appellee’s replies, although each of them on its face purports to reply to the second, third and fourth paragraphs of such answer, there was no attempt even, in either of such replies, to respond or reply to so much of such paragraphs of answer as pleaded the statute of limitations in bar of appellee’s action on the mortgage in suit. Clearly, therefore, under the rule of pleading hereinbefore stated, each of such replies was insufficient, and it was error in the, court below to overrule the demurrers thereto. Smith v. Little, 67 Ind. 549; Douch v. Bliss, 80 Ind. 316; McCaslin v. State, ex rel., 99 Ind. 428, on p. 441; McLead v. Ætna Life Ins. Co., 107 Ind. 394.

Aside from this rule of pleading, however, we are of opinion that the facts stated by appellee in each of his replies were wholly insufficient to take appellee’s cause of action, as against appellant Eliza Bottles, without the operation of the statute of limitations pleaded by her in bar of his action. It is a little difficult to comprehend the theory of appellee’s replies; but, surely, it is not the law that the small payment made on the note in suit by one of the four joint and several [588]*588makers thereof will stay the running of the statute, and defeat its operation as a defence in bar of the cause of action as to the others of such joint and several makers of such note. Such payment was at most only prima facie evidence of a new or continuing contract or promise by the payor of the monev to pay the note in suit. Willey v. State, ex rel., 105 Ind. 453.

It can not be correctly said, we think, that this new or continuing contract or promise to pay the note sued upon, evidenced prima facie by the payment on such note, is binding on any one except the maker of such payment. In section 302, R. S.

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Bluebook (online)
14 N.E. 728, 112 Ind. 584, 1887 Ind. LEXIS 451, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bottles-v-miller-ind-1887.