Guinn v. Boas

• Decision Date: 10 May 1888
• Citation: 31 Mo.App. 131
• Parties: JOHN C. GUINN, Respondent, v. JACOB BOAS, et al., Appellants.
• Court: Kansas Court of Appeals

31 Mo.App. 131

JOHN C. GUINN, Respondent, v. JACOB BOAS, et al., Appellants.

Court of Appeals of Missouri, Kansas City.

May 10, 1888

Appeal from Jasper Circuit Court, HON. M. G. MCGREGOR, Judge.

Affirmed.

The case is stated in the opinion.

HAUGHAWONT & GRAY, for the appellant.

The point that the appeal should be dismissed for the failure to set out all the evidence in our brief and abstract of the record is not well taken. We understand the only object of this rule is, that in case respondent files no brief then this court will not have to go to the transcript and look over a lot of non-essential matter to obtain the desired information. Appellants' statement and abstract of the record sets out in haec verba, all the evidence of any ratification as required by law, that was introduced in evidence, and were it not for the incorrect and misleading statements made in respondent's brief it would not be necessary for the court to go to the transcript to reverse this judgment. We could, in this reply, set out the evidence complained of in respondent's brief, but as we differ so materially as to what the evidence is, it will be necessary for the court to examine the transcript.

PHELPS & BROWN, for the respondent.

I. Defendants' appeal should be dismissed, because appellants have failed to comply with rule fifteen of this court, which requires that every part of the transcript relied upon as error, and all that is necessary to show it such, must be printed in the abstract. When no point is made on the sufficiency of the evidence, it will be enough to set forth its tendency. But when the sufficiency of the evidence is questioned, so much of the transcript as contains all of the evidence on that question must be set out in the transcript in haec verba. Goodson v. Railroad, 23 Mo.App. 73; Hausmann v. Hope, 20 Mo.App. 173.

II. The controlling question in this case, and the only point made by appellants, is, that the evidence was not sufficient to show a ratification by defendant on attaining majority of his note made during his minority. The appellants should have set out in their abstract in haec verba so much of the transcript as contained all the evidence on that question. Such evidence is of vital importance in determining whether or not the action of the trial court in refusing to sustain defendants' demurrer to the testimony was warranted; and yet appellants' counsel have not deemed it of sufficient importance to set out in their abstract the evidence.

III. The court will not go to the transcript to ascertain what the evidence tended to show, when, as in this case, not even the substance of it is set out in the abstract; in such case every reasonable intendment is to be indulged in favor of the correctness of the judgment of the trial court. Hausmann v. Hope, 20 Mo.App. 193. Had the appellants set forth the evidence as contained in the transcript, it would have disclosed the fact that the note in controversy was given and that appellant arrived at majority and fully ratified and affirmed said note, long before the passage of the law of 1879 requiring the ratification to be in writing, and that before the commencement of this action, the appellant wrote plaintiff a letter admitting his liability on said note and agreeing to pay the same, and further, that the question of...