Adams v. Adams

• Decision Date: 17 May 1878
• Citation: 25 Minn. 72
• Parties: MARY C. ADAMS <I>vs.</I> C. POWELL ADAMS.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

25 Minn. 72

MARY C. ADAMSvs.

C. POWELL ADAMS.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

May 17, 1878.

Appeal by defendant from an order of the district court for Dakota county, Crosby, J., presiding, refusing a new trial.

Parliman & Hodgson, for appellant.

Clagett & Searles, for respondent.

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CORNELL, J.

The demand in suit is one of several negotiable promissory notes, which were given by the defendant to the plaintiff, at the same time, and upon one and the same entire consideration. They all originated in the same transaction, having been given in pursuance of an alleged illegal agreement, entered into between the parties while they were husband and wife, for the purpose of procuring a divorce between themselves, in an action then commenced by the plaintiff against said defendant. The defence interposed and relied on in this action is this alleged illegality in the consideration of the note, it being claimed that said agreement was void as against public policy. On the trial, the decision of the case turned solely upon the point that the defendant was concluded from asserting this defence by a former judgment recovered by default on one of these notes, in an action between the same parties, in the court of common pleas of Ramsey county The correctness of this ruling is the precise question presented for consideration on this appeal.

The record and bill of exceptions before us contain no copy of the complaint in that action, and its purport can only be gathered from the statement that the judgment was rendered "on a certain note, made by the defendant, on the twentieth day of October, 1873, in favor of the plaintiff, for the sum of $1,000, and interest," and on the admitted fact that such note was one of the series above named. It must be assumed, then, that the complaint in that action contained only such allegations as were essential to its validity, and to a recovery upon the cause of action stated, there being no appearance by the defendant. In the statement of a cause of action upon a negotiable promissory note, no consideration need be averred, because the instrument of itself imports one. A complaint which contains no such averment is not, for that cause, demurrable. Moak's Van Santv. 166; Pinney v. King, 21 Minn. 514. If, therefore, as must be assumed, no issue was tendered by the complaint in the action in which such former judgment was recovered, upon the fact of consideration as respects the note there sued on, it is evident that no question of illegality of consideration was directly involved, nor was it passed upon or determined by the judgment, because, being rendered by default, it was not an adjudication upon any fact or matter which was not stated in the complaint, or which the plaintiff would not have been required to prove in the maintenance of his action under the traverse of a general denial; and under such a denial a valid consideration, in fact, for the note, need not have been proved, nor could the defendant therein have availed himself of any special defence of a character such as is interposed by the answer in this action. Finley v. Quirk, 9 Minn. 179 (194.)

The question before us for adjudication, then, is whether the defendant here is precluded, by this former judgment, from litigating in this action a question which was not raised by the pleadings in that action, and hence was not directly passed upon nor determined, because the note there sued on originated in the same illegal transaction as the one now in suit, and a recovery thereon might have been defeated if the defence which is here set up had been there properly interposed. As respects the particular note or demand upon which the recovery was had in that action, the judgment which was there rendered is a finality, and conclusive of the rights of the parties thereto, and their privies, not only as to every matter and defence which was actually presented and litigated therein, but as to every possible defence or matter that might have been presented for adjudication. So far as that note is concerned, the litigation is forever closed, and the rights of the respective parties in respect thereto have become finally fixed and determined. Allis v. Davidson, 23 Minn. 442; Thompson v. Myrick, 24 Minn. 4. The operative effect, however, of the judgment, as a bar or estoppel in another action between the same parties upon another of said notes not directly involved or passed upon in the former action, though resting upon the same illegal consideration, is limited to the precise points which were then actually controverted, and to the matters which were embraced in the issue there tendered, upon the determination of which such judgment was rendered. Dixon v. Merritt, 21 Minn. 196; Cromwell v. County of Sac, 94 U. S. 351; Davis v. Brown, 94 U. S. 423.

The decision, as well as the instruction, which the court below gave upon this point was, therefore, erroneous, and a new trial must be awarded, unless, as is urged by plaintiff, it is apparent from the whole record that the judgment below is right, notwithstanding such error.

It is contended by plaintiff that the defendant was precluded from impeaching the validity of the note sued on, by showing that it was given in pursuance of a void agreement, because he was a party to such agreement, standing in pari delicto. While a court will not aid such a party by relieving him from the effects of an illegal agreement, when once executed, as was the case in Bibb v. Hitchcock, 49 Ala. 468, cited by plaintiff, it will not prevent him from resisting its enforcement while it remains an executory contract; nor will it extend its aid to either party to enforce any of its provisions. It is conceded here, upon the facts, that the note in question was given in pursuance of the written agreement, and to carry out its provisions. It was, in fact, a part of the agreement, resting wholly upon its validity for support, and the plaintiff now...