148 Ind. 552 | Ind. | 1897
The appellee, as the assignee for the benefit of creditors of the New Albany Banking Company. sued the appellants in the Floyd Circuit Court to collect an indebtedness of $146,076.44, evidenced by six promissory notes executed by said defendants, and by them also as the firm of Winstandley & Co., and to obtain an order for the sale of 812 1-2 shares of the capital stock of the Peerless Manufacturing Company, of Louisville, Kentucky, and 490 shares of 'the capital stock of the Little Falls Water Power Company, of Little Falls, in the state of Minnesota, represented by variously numbered certificates of stock specified in the complaint.
The issues formed were tried by the Clark Circuit Court, to which court the cause went on change of venue, resulting in a general finding for the plaintiff, upon which the court rendered judgment. The assignment of errors not waived by failure to discuss the same, call in question the rulings of the trial court in sustaining certain demurrers to certain separate answers by certain of the defendants. The appellee objects to the sufficiency of the assignments of error, because each appellant has assigned error of which he
The first alleged error complained of is the ruling sustaining the plaintiff’s demurrer to the third paragraph of the separate answer of the defendant Breyfogle. It is very difficult to determine just what the paragraph means, on account of the confused and uncertain method of statement of the facts therein relied on as a defense. So far as we are able to decipher it, the substance thereof is, that the notes sued on were given in consideration of the sale and transfer to the said defendant of certain assets and choses in action, belonging to said bank, by order of the Floyd Circuit Court to the plaintiff, as the assignee, so to sell and transfer the same. That pursuant to said order said assets and choses in action had been sold and delivered to said defeudant Breyfogle by said assignee; and that said order provided that said assignee should make a report to said court of such sale and transfer for approval at the succeeding term of the Floyd Circuit Court; that no such report has ever been made by said assignee. The theory of this plead
Appellant’s learned counsel say that, “There are but two other questions in this case, which we desire to present and press upon your consideration, and they arise from the fifth and sixth paragraphs of * Breyfogle’s answer.” These paragraphs of Breyfogle’s separate answer contain a statement of a great multiplicity of facts thrown together in a confused heap, as if the pleader was doing his level best to prevent the court from understanding the general purport of the same. But we are relieved from much labor in deciding many questions which might arise on some of the facts thus stated, by reason of said paragraphs purporting to answer the whole complaint, and at most, if all that is claimed for them by appellant were true, they would be insufficient. The full extent to which they respectively go is to state a great variety of facts, designed to show that the assignment and transfer of the stocks mentioned in the complaint to the New Albany Banking Company as collateral security, were without authority of law, and void. There is not a word said in either, why there should not be a recovery upon the notes mentioned in the complaint. The complaint, it will have been observed, sought to recover a judgment upon the notes therein mentioned, as well as to obtain an order for the sale of the stocks mentioned therein, held by the trustee as collateral security for the payment of said notes. The answers purport to be a full defense, and if all that is claimed for them is true in fact and in law, they would each only amount to a partial defense, namely, a defense against the demand in the complaint for an order to sell the stocks to pay the judgment recovered on the notes. When an answer purports to be a bar or defense to the entire cause of action stated in the complaint, and
It follows, that the circuit court did not err in sustaining the demurrer to each of said paragraphs. The judgment is affirmed.