72 Iowa 246 | Iowa | 1887
The judgment which plaintiffs seek to enforce was rendered in 1873 against the St. Louis & Cedar Rapids Railroad Company and John S. Wolf jointly. It is a money judgment for $5,836.50, and it established and foreclosed a mechanic’s lien against the road-bed of a railway belonging to the railroad company. The person in whose favor it was
Two questions arise in the case: (1) Whether the judgment is void for want of jurisdiction in the court rendering it; and (2) whether the action of the plaintiff in taking a money judgment against Wolf upon an original notice, which notified him only that a foreclosure of the mechanic’s lien was demanded, was a fraud upon him which will avoid the judgment.
I. The Revision of 1860 was in force when the notice was served and the judgment rendered. Section 2812 provided that the notice must inform the defendant of the name of the plaintiff, and the date when the petition would be filed, and the nature of the claim made against him, and the amount claimed, when the action was for money. It also
II. Neither is the judgment void on the other ground urged. If the defendant was misled by the notice, it was because he chose to be so misled. He was informed by it that the petition would be on file at a named date. The office of that pleading is to state the very claim made by the plaintiff. If defendant had examined it, he would have seen at once the character and amount of the demand, and would have had full opportunity to make his defense. Nothing was concealed from him. Although the notice did not inform him that plaintiff was suing on a money demand, it did inform him that at a specified time a petition would be filed in which his claim would be fully stated. With this information imparted to him, the defendant could not have been misled or deceived by the notice. The essential elements of fraud are absent from the case.
, We think, therefore, that the demurrer was properly sus. tained. Affiemed.