Cook v. Gallatin Railroad

72 P. 678, 28 Mont. 340, 1903 Mont. LEXIS 97
CourtMontana Supreme Court
DecidedJune 6, 1903
DocketNo. 1,556
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 72 P. 678 (Cook v. Gallatin Railroad) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Montana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cook v. Gallatin Railroad, 72 P. 678, 28 Mont. 340, 1903 Mont. LEXIS 97 (Mo. 1903).

Opinion

ME. JUSTICE MILBUEN

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a suit fop the foreclosure of a lien upon the property of the defendant railroad company, with intervention by the interveners named in the title of the cause.

It has been very difficult to get a correct idea of the pleadings and of the theory upon which the case was tried, as the plead[348]*348ings were not as skillfully drawn as they might have been, and because the brief of the appellants fails to comply with the rules of the court in some particulars, thus requiring us to rely upon our own research in some parts, and causing us h> fail to discover appellants’ meaning in other places, and, further, because the argument is involved, going from one point to another without any attempt to take up and discuss the points in the order in which they are indicated in the assignment of alleged errors.

Plaintiffs filed in the office of the county clerk a notice of lien, and brought an action to foreclose the lien, declaring upon a contract in writing, in which, among other things, it was stipulated that the parties thereto should settle upon the final esti1 mate of the superintendent of construction of the defendant railroad company. Plaintiffs averred that they had complied with the terms of the contract, and that under its terms they were entitled to a balance of $13,252.82, with attorney’s fees and costs. After a jury was sworn, plaintiffs, with leave, amended their complaint by adding a paragraph declaring the reasonable worth of all of the labor done to be the sum of $30,-022.82. There does not seem to have been any objection to this amendment, which was made after the second amended'answer, upon which defendants relied on the trial, had been filed. The defendants asked leave to interpose a demurrer to the complaint as amended, but the record fails to disclose that they stated upon what grounds they wished to demur, or that they offered any demurrer in writing to the court. IJpon the trial the plaintiffs, for the purpose of showing that the vrork had been completed, introduced in evidence the “final estimate” of one Wiswell, who was the superintendent of construction of the defendant company. Examination of the complaint, the answer, and of this estimate, which appears in full in the record, makes it certain that the plaintiffs claimed and introduced proof to show that they had excavated and removed cubic yards of solid rock and loose rock largely in excess of the number of cubic yards stated in the Wiswell estimate, and that the defendant company denied on the trial that the number of cubic yards of solid rock and [349]*349loose rock removed by plaintiffs was as great as claimed by plaintiffs or stated in tbe said estimate, and introduced proof to' support tbeir contention.

Tbe interveners, having filed two notices of lien, asked that as to one cause of action they be allowed a lien, with provision for a deficiency judgment against plaintiffs ; and, as to tbe second cause of action, without any reference to any claim against plaintiffs, they asked for a lien on tbe property oí tbe defendants. The notice of lien first mentioned in tbe bill of intervention, referring to plaintiffs, declared tbe name of tbe owner of tbe property upon which they sought a lien to be tbe Yellowstone Park Railway. In tbe other notice set out in connection with tbeir second cause of action, without any reference therein to plaintiffs, interveners describe tbe owner to be tbe Yellowstone Park Railroad Company. .Defendants demurred to tbe complaint in intervention, and to each cause of action therein set forth; one ground being that it did not, as a whole, or as to either cause of action, state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. This demurrer was overruled. Tbe plaintiffs admitted all that interveners claimed, except as to the amount alleged to be due, and as to this they admitted all except a small sum. Tbe court brought in a jury to- advise it. Tbe jury found for plaintiffs, assessing tbe damages at $14,017.37. Tbe court found and entered its decree in favor of plaintiffs and interveners adjudging liens upon all the property of tbe defendants as prayed, and directing that tbe property be sold to satisfy tbe liens. Tbe defendants appeal from tbe decree, and from an order overruling a motion for a new trial.

Twenty-eight assignments of error are in tbe brief, one of them not being numbered.

1. Defendants declare that tbe court erred in refusing to allow them to interpose a demurrer to thé plaintiffs’ complaint as amended, and in compelling defendants to answer immediately tbe same. While this appears to be two points in one, tbe only point apparently argued and relied upon is that tbe court erred in refusing to allow a demurrer to be interposed to the [350]*350complaint as amended; it having been amended after the jury were sworn by adding a paragraph to the effect that the work and the labor done were reasonably worth the sum of $30,-022.82. The record does not show that the demurrants stated any ground to the court why the answer as amended was de-murrable. If a demurrer in writing was offered, it has not been pointed out in the record. The complaint seems to state a cause of action, and we cannot hold that the court erred as assigned.

It. does not appear that the defendants asked leave to amend their answer, or suggested that they wished to do so.

2. The 2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th assignments of alleged error refer to the court’s action in permitting the introduction of testimony showing or tending to show that the “final estimate” made by the superintendent of construction, Wiswell, was inaccurate as to the classifications of the rock and earth removed. The fifth assignment we do not notice, except so far as it may be covered by the remarks made in this paragraph, for the reason that it does not make any reference to any page of the record, and contains several assignments merged in one. We do not find that the court erred in permitting the appellants to introduce evidence to show the quantities of rock, loose rock, earth, etc., which were actually removed under the contract, and that the statement of Wiswell was not true. The case was tried hy each party on the assumption that the statement of Wiswell was not correct, and that it had not been considered by either party as the basis of settlement. The plaintiffs said it showed too little work done under some classifications, and the defendants declared that it showed too much done under the same heads. It having been repudiated by each party in open court upon the record, it does not seem to us that any prejudice could result in admitting the testimony which was introduced by each side. It is true that plaintiffs declared in their complaint upon a contract in writing, under the terms of which they could not be paid until a final estimate had been made; and it is also true that the plaintiffs did not in their complaint, avoid or attack the truth of the final estimate which was made. It also appears [351]*351that the defendants denied tbat tbe plaintiffs bad complied witb the terms of the contract. But the case having been tried and submitted in the court below upon the theory that the “final estimate” was not true, appellants cannot now maintain that, under the complaint, evidence was not admissible to show that the final statement was false. Such evidence as may have been hearsay as to Wiswell having said that his final estimate was false could not be prejudicial, as defendants themselves declared that the said estimate was not true.

3.

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Bluebook (online)
72 P. 678, 28 Mont. 340, 1903 Mont. LEXIS 97, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cook-v-gallatin-railroad-mont-1903.