Gerke v. Citizens State Bank

125 N.E. 238, 72 Ind. App. 328, 1919 Ind. App. LEXIS 290
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedNovember 25, 1919
DocketNo. 10,149
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 125 N.E. 238 (Gerke v. Citizens State Bank) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gerke v. Citizens State Bank, 125 N.E. 238, 72 Ind. App. 328, 1919 Ind. App. LEXIS 290 (Ind. Ct. App. 1919).

Opinion

Nichols, C. J.

—This was an action by appellant against appellee Citizens Bank of Spencerville, Ohio, and others, for the review of the proceedings and judgment in a suit for foreclosure of a mortgage by appellee bank against appellee Martin Gerke and wife, with others, including appellant. The relief sought was the review of said proceedings and judgment.

It appears by the record that the original judgment, the review of which is sought in this case, was rendered after motion for a new trial was overruled, February 18,1915, and that the complaint in this case for the review thereof was filed August 18,1915,181 days after the judgment. It is provided by statute that appeals must be taken within 180 days from the time the final judgment is rendered, and that no appeal can be taken thereafter. It was appellant’s right to prosecute an appeal from the original judgment, or to file her complaint for a review thereof. She elected to pursue the remedy of review, but at the time she filed her complaint in review she had lost her right of appeal, by reason of the expiration of the time within which she could prosecute the same. ' Such review having been denied by the circuit court, it is the opinion of the writer that she should not now be allowed to prosecute an appeal from the court’s judgment in the review proceedings. To decide otherwise simply nullifies the statutory provisions for appeals, [331]*331as to the time within which they may be taken, and opens np a way by which the express statutory provisions relating thereto can be avoided, and appellant thereby accomplishes by indirection the purpose which she cannot accomplish by direct appeal. Such a result could not have been contemplated by the legislature. Klebar v. Town of Corydon (1881), 80 Ind. 95; McCurdy v. Love, Exrx. (1884), 97 Ind. 62; Moody v. Irwin (1914), 181 Ind. 197, 104 N. E. 10.

1. There being no appeal from the judgment at the time the complaint for its review was filed, appellant by her delay, in the opinion of the writer, has put her case with those cases from which there is no right of appeal from the circuit court’s judgment in the review proceedings, and therefore this court is without jurisdiction, and the appeal should be dismissed. This view, however,, is not concurred in by the majority of this court, and we therefore proceed to a decision of the case upon other grounds.

2. Appellee bank has made its motion in this court to dismiss this appeal for the reason that since the same was taken appellant, or her guardian, has accepted three payments of the semiannual installments of annuity, the same being paid appellant. Such payments were not made in discharge of any order or judgment of the court, but in conformity to the provisions of the will of Louis Gerke, deceased. §671 Burns 1914, §632 R. S. 1881,' does not apply. The motion is overruled.

3. [332]*3324. [331]*331It is averred in the complaint for review in this cause, which covers twenty-three pages of appellant’s brief, that in the original cause there was a complaint by appellee Citizens’ Bank of Spencerville, Ohio, against appellee Martin Gerke; [332]*332and wife, for judgment on certain notes and foreclosure of a mortgage securing them. Others were made defendants to appellee bank’s complaint, among whom was appellant, to answer as to arrearages of annuity, if any, which were due her as a legatee under the will of her husband, Louis Gerke, deceased. Ap-' pellant answered, averring such arrearages, but failing to state.the amount thereof, which, however, was afterwards found by the court. She also filed a second paragraph of answer in which it seems that she undertook to challenge the title of appellee Martin Gerke to the 160-acre tract, as devisee of said Louis Gerke, deceased, claiming that the will of said deceased had been changed after his death by adding an “s” to the word “farm,” thereby making it read “farms,” and claiming to be the owner of the undivided-one-third of said 160 acres as undisposed of by will; but, if the averments of such paragraph of answer amount to a challenge of appellee Martin Gerke’s title, it must then be an attack upon the validity of the will, which, we observe, undertook to dispose of testator’s “entire worldly estate,” and being made, as it was, nearly thirteen years after the death of the testator, it comes too late. Putt v. Putt (1897), 149 Ind. 30, 36, 48 N. E. 356, 51 N. E. 337. To this paragraph of answer the demurrer was properly sustained. Appellee contends that the demurrer should not have been sustained because there was no memorandum therewith, but if the answer was insufficient, it was not error to sustain the demurrer thereto, even though there was no memorandum. Grand Rapids, etc., R. Co. v. Jaqua. (1917), 66 Ind. App. 113, 115 N. E. 73.

Appellee also filed a cross-complaint in such original proceeding by which she prayed an accounting as [333]*333to sums due her for feed unfurnished, and unpaid cash annuity, and fixing the present value of such feed and cash annuity for the remainder of her life, and for the foreclosure of a lien therefor, and sale of said real estate to pay the same.

Upon these issues the original cause was tried, and the complaint for review avers the facts in such original proceedings, as found by the court, so far as necessary for this decision to be substantially as follows: Louis Gerke died June 1, 1902, testate. By his will he devised to his son, appellee Martin Gerke, his farm in Adams county, Indiana, and testate’s share of the personal property thereon, owned by them in partnership subject to charges thereon; to his wife, appellant herein, in trust for the use of herself and daughter Sophie, his other personal property, and his real estate in Allen county, Indiana (homestead in Ft. Wayne); and to his wife absolutely an annuity of $600, to be paid by said appellee Martin Gerke, his heirs and assigns, in half-yearly installments of $300 each from testator’s death, charging said annuity, together with certain other legacies, to his children, and “the furnishing to appellant during her life with hay and grain for one horse, one cow, and all her chickens, delivered in Fort Wayne” against “said Adams County Farm” and providing that what was given his said wife, appellant, should not in any event be lessened by any debt or charge against his estate. Appellee Martin Gerke as devisee entered into possession of the land so described in the mortgage hereinafter mentioned, to wit, 160 acres, and 120 acres, both in Adams county, and thereafter, to wit, on March 12, 1912, executed three promissory notes, each in the sum of $5,600, due in two, three and four years respectively from date, and each pay[334]*334able to appellee bank, and to secure said notes executed a mortgage on said real estate, Ms wife joining therein, the said mortgage being subject to the provisions of the said will. These notes and mortgage are the basis of this action.' After the death of her husband, appellant continued to reside at the homestead in Fort Wayne with her. daughter Sophie, until the daughter’s marriage in 1910, and thereafter with other children elsewhere. She had kept no cow since 1905, no horse since 1908, and no chickens since 1910.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
125 N.E. 238, 72 Ind. App. 328, 1919 Ind. App. LEXIS 290, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gerke-v-citizens-state-bank-indctapp-1919.