3 Ind. App. 431 | Ind. Ct. App. | 1892
This was an action on a promissory note executed by the appellant to the appellee.
The answer was general denial, with another paragraph alleging that when appellant executed the note she was and yet is a married woman, and the wife of Peter Morningstar j
The appellee replied by general denial, and a second paragraph alleging facts which will hereafter appear, and it is not therefore necessary to here set them out.
There was a trial by a jury, which returned a general verdict for the appellee, with answers to special interrogatories propounded by each party with leave of court. Appellant moved for a new trial, which was overruled, and exception taken.
Judgment was rendered on the verdict.
But one error is properly assigned, to wit, the alleged error of the court in overruling the motion for a new trial.
The first contention of the appellant is that the verdict of the jury was not sustained by sufficient evidence.
Under the issues formed the evidence tended to sustain the second paragraph of the reply, which admitted that the appellant was a married woman, but that the note was executed by the appellant in consideration of the price of preparing by the appellee as clerk of the Morgan Circuit Court, and delivering to the agent of the appellant for the appellant, a transcript of the proceedings had and judgment rendered against the husband of the appellant in an action in the Morgan Circuit Court, wherein William N. Cunningham was plaintiff and appellant’s husband was defendant; that said transcript 'was to be used to prosecute an appeal from said judgment to the Supreme Court in behalf of appellant’s husband; that appellant was interested in having said appeal prosecuted to said court, and in having said judgment reversed, and having said action defeated, for the reason that appellant had and owned at the time certain judgments rendered against her said husband in said circuit court, which
The note sued on in this action was executed in 1885;
In Young v. McFadden, 125 Ind. 254, it was said : “We can receive no assistance from the decisions made under the common law, for our enabling statutes have completely
In Berridge v. Banks, 125 Ind. 561, it was said: “A married woman may purchase property for herself, or, indeed, for another, and bind herself by the execution of a promissory note in payment for the property purchased by her.”
A further consideration of this question is needless. The evidence, as we have said, tended to sustain the second paragraph of the reply, and under the facts alleged in said reply the law is clearly with the appellee.
The next contention is that the answer of the jury to certain interrogatories was not sustained by the evidence. The answer of the jury to the interrogatories to which specific objection is made was harmless. It was immaterial whether
It is further claimed that the court erred in instructions 7, 8, 9,10 and 11. The argument made against the seventh instruction is that it does not specifically define estoppel. This does not render the instruction bad. If it was not sufficiently specific, and too general, the appellant should have asked for an instruction more specific, but,- when considered with other instructions given, the. instruction was correct.
Instruction No. 8 contained a correct statement of the law, which was that if the consideration of the note, or any part thereof, moved to the appellant, and that the note was executed for her benefit, as well as the benefit of. her husband, the note would be valid as against her. Young v. McFadden, supra, and other authorities cited.
The ninth, tenth, and eleventh instructions were fully as favorable to the appellant as she could ask under the conclusions we have reached in the case under the authorities cited in construing the statutes of 1881, relating to married women, and under the rule so well established, that the instructions must be considered as an entirety, and not by detached clauses, it appears that the instructions, as a whole, fully embraced all the issues in the case, and fairly stated the law.
The final claim of the appellant is that the court erred in overruling appellant’s motion to suppress and strike out the deposition of Levi Ferguson, taken by the appellee and filed in said cause. No question is presented to this court on this ruling by the motion for a new trial, as the motion for a new trial fails to assign any cause by reason of overruling said motion,and,besides,the appellant read said deposition in evidence.
Appellee raised the question in argument, that the evidence
The judgment is affirmed, at appellant’s costs.