No. 9510 | Ind. | Jan 22, 1884
— Action by David B. Creviston, as assignee of the Birdsell Manufacturing Company, against John V. Cleveland, upon a promissory note for $100, payable to said manufacturing company and assigned by it to the plaintiff.
The defendant answered admitting the execution of the note, but averring that it was executed under the following-circumstances: That prior to the time at which the note hears date, he had, in good faith, purchased from one Arthur C. Catón three combined clover threshers, hullers and- cleaners, manufactured by the McDonald Company at Wooster, in the State of Ohio, for which he had paid full price; that thereupon the officers and agents of the Birdsell Manufacturing Company represented to him that said company held a patent from the government of the United States conferring upon it the exclusive right to manufacture and sell said machines, and demanded of him a royalty of $100 on each machine ; that he, the defendant, claimed that said company’s
A demurrer, alleging a want of sufficient facts,.was sustained to the answer, and, the defendant declining to answer further, final judgment was rendered against him for the
The only question presented for decision is: Did the circuit court err in sustaining the demurrer to the answer ?
It is said in Wells on Res Adjudicata, at page 203, section 233, that, “As to instalments, the rule has already been stated to be that where there are two or more promissory notes (or bonds) executed as a part of the same transaction, so that what affects the one must affect the other in like manner, an adjudication upon one will determine that upon the other— and this applies to defences, as where suit has been brought on the first of two notes given for instalments of purchase-money of real estate, and judgment is rendered for the plaintiff on a particular defence, that defence is not thereafter available in a suit on the other note.”
The rule thus stated is, in principle, nothing more than an affirmation and an extension of the doctrine announced in the Duchess of Kingston’s Case, 2 Sm. Lead. Cas. 609, in which it was said, “that the judgment of a court of concurrent jurisdiction, directly upon the point, is as a plea, a bar, or as evidence, conclusive, between the same parties, upon the same matter, directly in question in another court.”
In the case of Gardner v. Buckbee, 3 Cowen, 120, it was held by the Supreme Court of the State of New York, that a verdict and judgment in the Marine Court of New York City upon one of two notes given upon the sale of a vessel, that the sale was fraudulent, the vessel being at the time unsearvorthy, were conclusive upon the question of the character of the sale, in an action upon the other note between the same parties in the court of common pleas of that State, and that case was commented upon and approved by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Cromwell v. County of Sac, 94 U.S. 351" court="SCOTUS" date_filed="1877-04-16" href="https://app.midpage.ai/document/cromwell-v-county-of-sac-89476?utm_source=webapp" opinion_id="89476">94 U. S. 351. The same doctrine has been, either expressly or impliedly, recognized by this court in several decided cases. Hargus v. Goodman, 12 Ind. 629" court="Ind." date_filed="1859-06-28" href="https://app.midpage.ai/document/hargus-v-goodman-7034300?utm_source=webapp" opinion_id="7034300">12 Ind. 629; French v.
The judgment is reversed with costs, and the cause remanded for further proceedings.