Lynn v. Crim

96 Ind. 89, 1884 Ind. LEXIS 262
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedJune 3, 1884
DocketNo. 11,205
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 96 Ind. 89 (Lynn v. Crim) 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
Lynn v. Crim, 96 Ind. 89, 1884 Ind. LEXIS 262 (Ind. 1884).

Opinion

Howk, J.

This was a suit by the appellee upon a promissory note, executed by the appellants Lynn and Moore, to the order of one James C. Lynn, and by him endorsed to the appellee. It was alleged in the complaint that the note was due and unpaid, and judgment was demanded for the amount due thereou. The cause was put at issue and tried by the court, and a finding was made for the appellee, and judgment was rendered accordingly.

Errors are assigned here which call in question the decisions of the circuit court in sustaining appellee’s demurrers to the sixth, seventh and eighth paragraphs of the separate answer of the appellant Moore, and in overruling the appellants’ motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment.

The evidence is not in the record, and, in their brief of this cause, the appellants’ counsel have not even alluded to the alleged errors of the court in overruling their motions for [90]*90a new trial and in arrest of judgment. These supposed errors must, therefore, be regarded as waived. Irwin v. Lowe, 89 Ind. 540.

The rulings of the trial court upon the sixth, seventh and eighth paragraphs of answer, therefore, are the only errors complained of in argument by the appellants' counsel. The appellants jointly answered in four paragraphs, in substance, as follows: 1. A general denial; 2. Payment in full; 3. Want of consideration; and, 4. That appellee was not, but James C. Lynn, the payee of the note in suit, was the real party in interest and the owner of such note.

The appellant Moore separately answered in five paragraphs. In paragraph 4£ Moore admitted the execution of the note in suit, but said that it was executed, as to him, without any consideration. In paragraph 5, the appellant Moore, admitting the execution of the note sued on, averred that he was the principal and his co-defendant was his surety in such note, and that, prior to the assignment of the note to the appellee, the payee of such note was indebted to him, Moore, in the sum of $200 on a certain judgment, etc., which judgment he offered to set off against an equal amount of the note in suit; and as to the residue of such note, he said that it was without any consideration whatever. Issue was joined upon each of the foregoing paragraphs of answer, except the one numbered 4J, to which the appellee neither demurred nor replied so far as the record shows.

With this statement of the issues in the cause, we come to the consideration of the sixth, seventh and eighth paragraphs of Moore's separate answer, to each of which he claims that appellee’s demurrers were erroneously sustained.

In the sixth paragraph of his separate answer, the appellant Moore admitted the execution of the note in suit, but he averred that such note was executed pursuant to a contem- . poraneous parol agreement between him and his co-appellant John S. Lynn, for the purchase of a tract of land of Moore; whereby his co-appellant undertook to convert the timber-[91]*91•trees on such land into saw-logs and lumber, and after realizing therefrom to pay the proceeds to said Moore to the amount of $3,000, in payment for the land, and all over that sum to the amount of $500 to pay to James Lynn, the payee of the note in suit; that it was further agreed that if the appellant Moore would sign the note for $500 with his cor defendant John S. Lynn, the payee of such note, James Lynn, would credit thereon the amount of a certain judgment then held by one Mary E. Moore, the mother of appellant Moore, against such payee, theretofore rendered by a •certain justice of the peace of Marion township, in such county, for the sum of $156.50 and costs; that upon such representations and agreement so entered into, and on no ■other consideration whatever, he was induced to sign the note for $500; that thereafter there was paid on such note the .sum of $100, by his said co-defendant, when it was renewed by the giving of the note in suit for $400 on the old consideration and the aforesaid representations; and that the payee -of the note, James Lynn, had knowledge of and was a party to the aforesaid representations and agreement, by and between the appellant Moore and his said co-defendant. And appellant Moore averred that the payee, Lynn, had failed to <y.'edit said judgment on said note, or to pay the same, and had assigned the note to the appellee, who had knowledge of the facts, and that he, Moore, had purchased such judgment, before the assignment of the note to appellee, and offered to set off such j udgment against a like amount of the note in suit.

There was no available error, we think, in the decision of the court sustaining appellee’s demurrer to this sixth paragraph of answer. Every material fact, alleged in this paragraph, could have been given in evidence under the fifth paragraph of answer, in which the appellant Moore, as we have seen, set up the same j udgment against the payee of the note by way of set-off, and upon which issue was joined by a reply in denial. If, therefore, the court had clearly erred in sustaining the demurrer to the sixth paragraph of answer, [92]*92the error would have been harmless, for it is well settled that a judgment will not be reversed for an error in sustaining a demurrer to a paragraph of answer, if all competent evidence-under such paragraph were admissible under another paragraph, remaining in the record. Wolf v. Schofield, 38 Ind. 175: Strough v. Gear, 48 Ind. 100; Marks v. Trustees, etc., 56 Ind. 288.

But the sixth paragraph of answer was bad, and the demurrer thereto was correctly sustained. The note in suit was the joint and several note of the appellant Moore and his co-defendant John S. Lynn, and there is nothing in the note, orín the complaint thereon, to indicate that the appellant Moore was the principal and his co-defendant the surety in such note. It was not alleged in the sixth paragraph of answer that the appellant Moore was principal and his co-defendant surety in the note sued upon. In an action upon a promissory note against two or more defendants as the makers thereof, a claim in favor of one of them can not be pleaded by him as a set-off, unless he allege that he is principal in the note, and that his co-defendants are sureties therein. Section 349, L. S. 1881; Harris v. Rivers, 53 Ind. 216; Welborn v. Coon, 57 Ind. 270; Gregory v. Gregory, 89 Ind. 345.

It is true that in the fifth paragraph of his answer the ap* pcllant Moore did allege that he was principal and his co-defendant surety in the note in suit, but the averment of such fact, in that paragraph, will not aid the sixth paragraph of answer, for it is a settled rule of pleading, under the code, that the defective allegations of one paragraph can not be-aided or cured by reference to the allegations of another paragraph. McCarnan v. Cochran, 57 Ind. 166; Smith v. Little, 67 Ind. 549; Entsminger v. Jackson, 73 Ind. 144.

In the seventh paragraph of his answer the appellant Moore admitted the execution of the note in suit, but be alleged that, at and before the execution of such note, he owned a tract of timbered land in Lawrence county; that he entered into an agreement with his co-defendant and the payee of [93]*93said note, whereby they agreed that his co-defendant John S.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Sefton v. Hargett
15 N.E. 513 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1888)
Farris v. Jones
14 N.E. 484 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1887)
Ludlow v. Ludlow
9 N.E. 769 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1887)
Hodgson v. Board of Commissioners
97 Ind. 604 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1884)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
96 Ind. 89, 1884 Ind. LEXIS 262, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lynn-v-crim-ind-1884.