65 Mo. 244 | Mo. | 1877
This suit was brought in the Circuit Court of Cass county by the Independence Eire and Marine Mutual Insurance Company on a note executed to it by defendants, due four months after date, and dated January 1st, 1861, for $96.73-100. This suit was instituted on the first day of May, 1871. The defendants appeared to the action, and filed their answer, subsequently to which time,
The only error complained of in the motion for new trial was as to the action of the court in giving the instructions asked by the plaintiffs and re- . r' * fusing those asked by the defendants. We will not, therefor, consider the action of the court in overruling defendants’ motion to dismiss the suit, nor its action in reviving the suit and permitting plaintiffs to prosecute the same, neither of these causes being incorporated in the motion for a new trial. If they were intended to be relied upon here, they should have been so incorporated. It was due to the court below that its attention should have been thus called to all the matters complained of, and which would be relied upon as ground of reversal. This has been repeatedly held to be necessary by this court. Acock v. Acock, 57 Mo. 155; Lancaster v. Washington Life Ins. Co.,
The instructions given on behalf of plaintiffs, are as follow:
1. That defendants have introduced no evidence that shows a legal defense against the note sued on, and the jury are instructed to find for plaintiffs.
2. If the. note was executed on the first day of January, 1861, and was made payable four months after date, and this suit was institued on the first day of May, 1871, then defendants cannot avail themselves of the defense of the statute of limitations, and there is no evidence to the contrary.
The following instructions asked by defendants were refused:
1. If the jury find from the evidence that the note in controversy was signed and delivered by defendants, with the understanding and agreement that the note was only to be collected for the payment of losses sustained thereafter by the Independence Eire and Marine Insurance Company, and that said company did not, after the date of said note, sustain any loss, then the jury would find for defendants.
2. If the jury believe that plaintiff’s cause of action did not accrue within ten years before the commencement of this suit, then they will find for defendants; and the jury are instructed that plaintiff’s cause of action accrued on the 1st day of May, 1871.
3. The jury are instructed, that upon the dissolution of the Independence Eire and Marine Mutual Insurance Company by expiration of its charter, all debts due to said company became extinct; and the jury will find for the defendants.
One of the defendants testified that he did not know the exact consideration of the note, that he had signed it as security for Simpson, Glenn & Co., and that it had been given in renewal of a previous, note. Another defendant, Glenn, testified that the note was exe
The case of Pink v. Stahl, 53 Mo. 437, fully justified the court in giving the second instruction for plaintiffs and refusing the second presented by defendants. If was there held that suit brought on the 13th day of September, 1871, on a note dated September first, 1871, payable ten days after date, was prematurely instituted, on the ground that the payer was entitled to three days of grace.
After the statement of the doctrine in Angelí & Ames on Corporations, that at common law, after the civil death of a corporation, all debts due to and from are totally extinguished, the author adds,. that “ the rule of the common law in relation to the effect of dissolution upon the property and debts of a corporation has in fact become obsolete and odious. Practically it has never been applied in England to insolvent or dissolved moneyed corporations, and in this country its unjust operation upon the rights of both creditors and stockholders of this class of corporations is almost invariably arrested by general or special statute.” This we think has been done in the case at bar by an act of the legislature, passed in 1865, entitled “An act for the benefit of the Independence Eire and Marine Mutual Insurance Company,” which provides that “ the directors of the Independence Eire and Marine Mutual Insurance Company are hereby authorized to proceed to wind up the business of said company as speedily as they may deem it to the interest of the company to do so, and the said directors are hereby empowered to receive outstanding dividend certificates in payment of debts due the company on such terms as they may
Affirmed.