Blair v. Buttolph

• Decision Date: 16 June 1887
• Citation: 33 N.W. 349,72 Iowa 31
• Parties: BLAIR v. BUTTOLPH.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

72 Iowa 31

33 N.W. 349

BLAIR

v.BUTTOLPH.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

June 16, 1887.

Appeal from circuit court, Hardin county.

Action by Blair, appellee, on the following written instrument:

“One year after the Chicago, Iowa & Dakota Railroad shall be completed to Iowa Falls, if completed by September 1, 1884, I promise to pay the said construction company three hundred and twenty-five dollars, being one-half my subscription in aid of said railroad.

J. T. BUTTOLPH.”

The defendant answered that the consideration for his undertaking in the instrument has failed; also that his signature thereto was obtained by fraud. The circuit court sustained a motion to strike out the allegations of fraud, and a demurrer to the divisions of the answer, in which the failure of consideration was pleaded. Defendant electing to stand on his answer, judgment was entered against him for the amount due on the contract, and from that judgment he appealed.S. M. Weaver and John F. Duncombe, for appellant.

C. E. Albrock, for appellee.

REED, J.

1. The paragraphs of the answer demurred to defendant allege that part of the consideration of the contract in suit was the verbal promise and agreement of the corporation to which it was given that it would constructand complete its line of railroad from Iowa Falls to Forest City, in Winnebago county, within one year after the date fixed in the contract for the completion of the road to Iowa Falls; and that said company had not only failed to perform its undertaking in that respect, but had entirely abandoned the project of building the road between those points. We think it very clear that, under familiar and well-settled rules of law, the defendant cannot avail himself of the matters thus pleaded as a defense. His undertaking was that he would pay the specified sum of money upon the performance by the other party of the single condition named in the contract. By the terms of the written instrument, the performance of that condition is made the sole consideration for his promise to pay the money. In the paragraphs of the answer in question he alleges that he was induced in part to enter into the agreement by another promise, entirely different and distinct from that, and that that promise has been broken But when the parties, by their writing, made the completion of the railroad to Iowa Falls within the specified time the condition upon which his liability to pay the money should accrue, they definitely fixed that as the...