Alexander v. Thompson
| Decision Date | 10 February 1890 |
| Citation | 42 Minn. 498,44 N.W. 534 |
| Parties | ALEXANDER v THOMPSON, (TWO CASES.) |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
(Syllabus by the Court.)
1. A mere written acknowledgment of a sum due is not a complete contract in writing, so as to exclude oral testimony to contradict or explain it.
2. The maker of such a writing is not estopped by it as to any one who may purchase the supposed debt.
3. A general offer to prove the facts stated in a pleading is not proper. The offer should specify the facts proposed to be proved.
4. The proper objection to such an offer is that it is not sufficiently definite and specific.
5. The objection that it is incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial is not a good one.
Appeal from district court, Blue Earth county; SEVERANCE, Judge.
Two suits by L. H. Alexander against Peter Thompson. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals.
Daniel Rohrer and J. L. Washburn, for appellant.
Warner & Lawrence, for respondent.
In neither of these cases is the instrument sued on a complete contract. In some states a due-bill is held to be a promissory note; in others it is held to be so if it contains words denoting a promise to pay or an intent that it shall be negotiable. But the better authority, as well as most consistent with principle, is that a mere acknowledgment of indebtedness is not of itself a contract. It is rather an admission of fact, and like all mere admissions, written or oral, it might be contradicted or explained by parol. It does not affect this rule that, from the facts admitted, the law would imply a promise to pay. One might in writing admit the facts that another had at his request rendered for him services of a specified value, and had not been paid. The law would imply from such facts a promise to pay such value. But undoubtedly the written admission of facts might be contradicted or explained by parol. Nor do the cases come within those where it is held that parol evidence is not admissible to vary the sense or construction to be legally implied from the written contract; for in those cases there was a completed written contract, and not a mere admission of fact, from which fact a promise would be presumed.
The principle of estoppel has no application to the case, because the writings were matters exclusively between Day and defendant, and were not intended nor expected to be relied upon or acted upon by any one else, and no one else had the right to rely or act upon them. Upon both these...
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Wood v. Rio Grande Western Ry. Co.
... ... "The ground of objection having been ... particularly stated, all other grounds waived." ... State v. Leehman, 49 N.W. 3, 7; Alexander v ... Thompson, 44 N.W. 534; People v. Manning, 48 Cal. 335, ... People ... v. McCauley, 45 Cal. 146, 148, holding that a party can not ... ...
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Smith v. Willing
...certain well-defined conventional exceptions not at all applicable here. McIntosh v. Lytle, 26 Minn. 336, 3 N. W. 983;Alexander v. Thompson, 42 Minn. 498, 44 N. W. 534;Brown v. Gilman, 13 Mass. 158. No evidence of any different rule in Illinois was introduced; hence presumption of identity ......
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Makiesky v. National Guardian Life Ins. Co.
...Makiesky, was indebted to Epstein." 1. A stranger to a transaction cannot set up an estoppel with reference thereto. Alexander v. Thompson, 42 Minn. 498, 44 N. W. 534; Selover v. First National Bank, 77 Minn. 140, 79 N. W. 666; Dunnell's Minn. Dig. (2d Ed.) § Defendants invoke this doctrine......
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Olson v. Nannestad
...stated. Under this testimony plaintiff was entitled to a verdict notwithstanding the recitals in the duebill. In Alexander v. Thompson, 42 Minn. 498, 44 N. W. 534, a suit upon duebills, such an instrument was held not a "It is rather an admission of fact, and, like all mere admissions, writ......