4 Mo. App. 139 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1877
delivered the opinion of the court.
It appears from the pleadings and evidence in this case that in May, 1861, Louisa Koch, wife of Peter Koch, owned a house and lot in St. Charles, worth about $3,000; the legal title being in one Eisser, as trustee, for her sole and separate use.
At that time Peter Koch owed $636 to Mary Weiss, and $759.68 to Beardslee & Brother, evidenced by his promissory notes, one given to Maiy Weiss, and .four to Beardslee & Brother. An attempt was made to secure these notes by deeds of trust on the house and lot mentioned above; but the deed of trust to Mary Weiss’s trustee was not signed by the trustee of Mrs. Koch, and the deed of trust to Beards-lee’s trustee was executed by the trustee without the written consent of Mrs. Koch, without which the trustee had no authority to convey. Peter Koch also owed about $400 to-the defendant, Morgner, who owned a house and lot in St. Charles, worth $600. It was then agreed that the Kochs, and Morgner should exchange houses, and that, in part, payment of the difference in values, Morgner should assume the payment of the notes described in the imperfectly executed deeds of trust on the Koch bouse, and also assume a certain unsecured indebtedness of Koch to one Klinger for $400. Accordingly, Morgner conveyed his six-hundred-dollar house to Mrs. Koch, and on May 10, 1861, Peter Koch and wife, and Eisser, as trustee of Mrs. Koch, conveyed the three-thousand-dollar house to Morgner, and Morgner
The following instruction asked by defendant was refused :
“To entitle the plaintiffs to recover, there must have*142 been an express contract between plaintiffs and defendant, whereby defendant, for a valuable consideration, undertook and obligated himself to pay plaintiffs’ claims against Koch, and the plaintiffs had paid said consideration ; or that defendant’s undertaking to pay said debts had been reduced to writing, signed by defendant, and duly assigned to plaintiffs.”
1. That one for whose benefit a promise has been made for a good and sufficient consideration may sue upon it, though not privy to the contract in which the promise was-made, is perfectly settled in this State; and when one undertakes to pay the debt of another, and by the same act pays his own debt, which was the motive of the promise, the undertaking is not within the statute of frauds, and need not be in writing. 10 Mo. 538; Besshears v. Rowe, 46 Mo. 501; Holt v. Dollarhide, 61 Mo. 433; Fitzgerald v. Barker, 4 Mo. App. The promise of defendant was a direct undertaking to pay his own debt; the debtor, by the direction of his creditor, agreeing to pay the amount to a third person, to whom the creditor was owing a like sum. This case is on all fours with the recent case of Holt v. Dollarhide. There, K., being indebted to H., sold land to D., and it was agreed at the time between D. and R. that D., as part of the consideration, should pay the debt of R. to H. This D. afterwards refused to do, and H. sued D. and recovered upon his promise to R. It is said by appellant, as has been said again and again, as cases of this kind have been argued in the Supreme Court of Missouri and of other States, that there was no consideration moving from plaintiff to defendant. In answer to this it was long ago said by Putnam, J., in Lilly v. Hays, 5 Ad. & E. (cited by Pars, on Con. 467, note v): “ Suppose the case of money sent to a general agent, who had promised to pay over the money sent to him ; in an action against him by the person for whose use this money was sent, would it be any answer for him to say that the consideration did not move from the
In tbe case at bar, defendant does not deny at all that he promised to pay this money; but be says that, when be found tbe deeds of trust to plaintiffs were no liens upon the land he had acquired on tbe faith of tbe promise to pay tbe debts which were supposed to be secured by those deeds, be determined not to pay. Nevertheless, the law will bold defendant to tbe promise be made to Koch for tbe benefit of these plaintiffs.
2. It is next insisted by appellant that plaintiffs were not entitled to recover because it appears by tbe evidence that, for tbe purpose of bringing a joint action, each bought a half-interest in tbe debt of tbe other. It is true that it is generally held that a portion of a debt, claim, or judgment cannot be assigned without tbe consent of the debtor ; and tbe reason of tbe rule, which is applied by courts of equity as well as by courts of law, is that the debtor may otherwise be harassed by a multitude of suits for one debt, and costs may be thus unjustly increased; and this has been held by our Supreme Court from the early decision in Love v. Fairfield, 13 Mo. 300, and has been again determined in Burnett v. Crandall, 63 Mo. 410. Yet the rule
It appears from the record that after the original petition was filed, no less than five amended petitions were filed by leave of court, so that the case went to trial at last upon the issues raised by answer to the sixth petition. After the court had sustained a demurrer to the third amended petition of plaintiffs, defendant moved to strike out the fourth.
We see nothing in this record to warrant a reversal of the judgment, and it is affirmed.