59 Ind. App. 271 | Ind. Ct. App. | 1915
Lead Opinion
Appellant filed in the trial court a complaint in one paragraph in which he sought to recover from appellee, damages for personal injuries alleged to have resulted from appellee’s negligence. A demurrer to the complaint for want of facts was overruled. Appellee then filed an answer in three paragraphs, the first of which is a general denial, the second, a plea of payment, and the third, an affirmative answer setting up in detail facts showing that prior to appellant’s employment by appellee, it, with its associated companies, had organized a relief department which it thereafter continuously maintained; that such department was organized and maintained for the benefit of injured and disabled employes of appellee, and its associated companies, the object and purpose of such relief department being to provide a fund out of which a definite amount should be paid to injured and disabled employes who contributed to such fund out of the wages earned by them while in the employ of appellee, and its associated companies, and, in the event of the death of any such employe a definite amount was to be paid to his relatives or beneficiaries named in his application. The answer also averred, in effect, that at the time appellant was employed
A demurrer was filed to this answer, accompanied by the following memorandum: “1. That said answer sets up an attempt on the part of the defendant to avoid Section No. 8020 of the Revised Statutes of 1908 of Indiana. 2. That said answer sets up and avers upon a contract that is in violation of section 8020 R. S. of 1908, and attempts to avoid said section of the Statutes. 3. That the contract set up in said third paragraph of answer is void for the want of mutuality. 4. Because it is without consideration. 5. That said contract is between this plaintiff and a voluntary relief association and defendant is not a party thereto. 6. Said contract is void because it is an attempt by the company to exonerate itself by contract from the results of its own negligence. ’ ’
This demurrer was overruled and appellant filed a reply in two paragraphs, the first of which is a general denial. A demurrer to the second paragraph of reply was sustained, whereupon appellant withdrew his reply of general denial and elected to stand on his affirmative reply, and the court then rendere'd judgment for appellee, that appellant take nothing by his complaint, etc. Prom this judgment appellant appeals and assigns as error in this court: (1) the overruling of his demurrer to appellee’s third paragraph
Rehearing
The cases cited are easily distinguishable from the instant ease. An examination of them will disclose that the memorandum involved in each attempted to point out in the pleading to which it was addressed some omitted fact or some infirmity in the pleading resulting from a defective or insufficient averment of fact, while in the instant case the grounds of the memorandum relied on are not grounds or objections based on the absence from the answer of any averment of a particular fact or facts, nor are such grounds based on the insufficiency of the averment of any particular fact or facts, but on the contrary, the grounds of the memorándum here involved are evidently intended to challenge the legality or validity of the contract on which the answer is based. The memorandum in either case must state the grounds of the objection to the pleading, but where the pleading is challenged because of the absence of a necessary averment or because of some infirmity in the manner of pleading, the trial court is entitled to have its attention specially called to the omitted averment or the particular
Where, as in this case, the trial court has its attention called to the invalidity of the contract on which the pleading is based, and the reason for its invalidity, §344, supra, has been substantially complied with and in such a case it would be a miscarriage of justice to permit a claim, otherwise meritorious, to be defeated by a contract made in violation of an express statute. The petition for rehearing is therefore overruled.
Note. — Reported in 106 N. E. 174; 109 N. E. 411 See, also, under (1) 3 C. J. 1409 ; 2 Cyc. 1913 Anno. 1013-36; (2) 3 C. J. 1352; 2 Cyc. 1002; 36 Cyc. 448; (3) 26 Cyc. 1096; (4) 3 Cyc. 223; (5) 31 Cyc. 316, 319; (6) 31 Cyc. 316.