Ammerman v. Teeter

• Decision Date: 30 September 1868
• Citation: 49 Ill. 400,1868 WL 5248
• Parties: RICHARD AMMERMANv.ROBERT TEETER.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

49 Ill. 400

1868 WL 5248 (Ill.)

RICHARD AMMERMAN

v.ROBERT TEETER.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

September Term, 1868.

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of Iroquois county; the Hon. CHARLES H. WOOD, Judge, presiding.

The opinion fully states the case.

Messrs. BLADES & KAY, for the appellant.

Messrs. ROFF & DOYLE, for the appellee.

Mr. JUSTICE WALKER delivered the opinion of the Court: This controversy arises on small accounts of the parties. Appellant claims that appellee owes him a few dollars, while appellee insisted he owed him nothing over and above the seven dollars which he tendered before suit was brought. Before the justice of the peace it seems, from the statements of appellee in giving his testimony, that he recovered a judgment of nine dollars. On the trial of the appeal in the circuit court the jury found a verdict in favor of appellee. Appellant brings the case to this court alone on the bill of exceptions by stipulation, and urges a reversal because the evidence fails to sustain the verdict, and because of the instructions given. We have looked into the bill of exceptions in connection with appellant's argument, appellee having filed none which has come to our hands.

Taking the evidence in its most favorable light to appellee, we are unable to see, even if we should include the seven dollars tendered, and which he says was left with the clerk for appellant, that he has paid the latter his due by seven or eight dollars. It appears that after the account of appellee had run for some time, appellant offered to pay twenty dollars in full, and after hesitation, appellee, a few days subsequently, accepted that sum. Appellant proved his account, which had accrued subsequently to that date, amounting to about thirty dollars. To meet this, appellee proved that he had furnished appellant some pie-plant, which, according to his own statement, could not have amounted to more than perhaps five dollars, and he paid appellant five dollars, and at his request paid Freeman six dollars, which would in the aggregate amount to sixteen dollars, to which, if we add the seven dollars left with the clerk as the tender, there would still be a balance due appellant.

If we were to allow five dollars per day for the labor performed by appellee in working on the artesian well and in harvesting the millet, the three dollars for removing the tools, pie-plant, money paid, and the seven dollars tendered, then the accounts would be about square. But we have...