68 Mo. 458 | Mo. | 1878
During the political campaign of 1870, it was deemed desirable by a party termed “ Liberal Republicans” to establish a newspaper at Sedaba, in the 5th Congressional District. Sundry candidates on this ticket, in conjunction with leading politicians, instead of starting such paper on an independent basis, concluded it more advisable to make an arrangement with a company who already owned a press to publish their proposed paper, and under this arrangement eight persons, among whom was the plaintiff, were named in the newspaper printed in pursuance of this arrangement as a board of managers. The canvass proved unsuccessful, and the company who owned the Democratic Press sued these managers for $938.08 as ex
The present action was commenced at .the May term, 1875, of the circuit court. In this suit the plaintiff asks the interposition of the court, as a court of equity, either to grant him a new trial, or, at all events, to decree a return of the money he has paid, on the ground, that three of his co-defendants in the first suit had colluded with the plaintiff, and had made such arrangements with the plaintiff as would diminish or discharge their liabilities, without the knowledge of this plaintiff — that one of them, Saunders, had paid $300 more than was credited to him and had a receipt for the same, but did not in his evidence on the first trial disclose this — that another of them, Richardson, was let off by paying $25, under a previous agreement, not known to plaintiff — and that Smith, the third party named, had an arrangement with the press company by which his responsibility was limited to one-sixth. The plaintiff alleges that the defenses of these three defendants were sham defenses — and that he never discovered this until after he paid his $278.33. He, therefore, asks that this judgment be set aside, and that he recover the $278.33 from the plaintiff in the former suit or from his co-defendants, Smith, Saunders and Richardson.
The jurisdiction of courts of equity over eases of this sort is conceded. In Duncan v. Lyon, 3 John. Ch. 365, Chancellor Kent says: “It is a settled principle that a party will not be aided after a trial at law, unless he can impeach the justice of the verdict on grounds of which he could not have availed himself, or was prevented from doing it by fraud or accident, or the act of the opposite party, unmixed with negligence or fault on his part.” At
The plaintiff in this case does not charge that he was not liable as one of the managers of this newspaper. That question was passed on by the jury in the former case, and nothing is alleged in the petition in the present case to authorize its re-examination. But conceding his liability, the plaintiff insists that the collusion between the plaintiff in the original suit and Richardson and Saunders, two of his co-defendants, prevented him from producing, on that trial, testimony that would have materially reduced his pecuniary liability. Of course the circuit court excluded all evidence offered in the present case designed to show that the plaintiff was not responsible at all. The propriety of this exclusion could not be doubted. It was not pretended that any new evidence had been discovered on this point, or that the present defendants had done anything to suppress such evidence, or pi’event its introduction in the former suit.
One of the principal grounds of complaint here, is that Saunders, one of the co-defendants of plaintiff in the former action, was not allowed to testify. He had been indicted for obtaining money under false pretenses, and had been convicted by a jury, but had appealed to this
The question as to an alteration of a receipt given by Hull, the manager of the press company, who sued as plaintiff in the former trial, to Saunders, from $200 to $500 is a matter which we are not inclined to review. The judge who tried this case was satisfied, and for myself I agree with him. The original receipt is sent here in the record, and I think an alteration was made, but apart from this, the books of the company produced on the trial are strong, if not conclusive evidence, that-the receipt was originally for $200 and not for $500.
It appears very clearly that Richardson, one of the defendants in the suit against plaintiff and others, had made an arrangment with the plaintiff, by which he was
Affirmed.