Bond v. Welcome
| Decision Date | 06 May 1895 |
| Docket Number | 9323--(240) |
| Citation | 63 N.W. 3,61 Minn. 43 |
| Parties | CHARLES E. BOND, Administrator, v. F. H. WELCOME |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Appeal by plaintiff from an order of the district court for Yellow Medicine county, Powers, J., referring the case to a referee. Affirmed.
Order affirmed.
W. A McDowell, for appellant.
D. A McLarty and A. J. Volstead, for respondent.
The plaintiff appeals from an order made by the court below referring, against his objections, all the issues of the case to a referee, to hear, try, and report a judgment.
1. If this is an action at law for the recovery of money only, the plaintiff is entitled absolutely to a trial by jury, although it involves the examination of a long account on either side, for the constitution guaranties to him this right. St. Paul & S. C. R. Co. v. Gardner, 19 Minn. 99 (132). But if the action is equitable in its nature, which, in a jurisdiction where law and equity are administered in separate courts, a court of equity would take cognizance of, the plaintiff is not entitled to a jury trial, and the court had a right to make a compulsory reference; for in such cases, at the time of the adoption of the constitution, there was no absolute right of trial by jury. Fair v. Stickney Farm Co., 35 Minn. 380, 29 N.W. 49. Is the action an equitable one? is the only question, then, in the case. It is such an action if the trial of it will involve the taking and adjustment of complicated accounts between parties sustaining fiduciary relations, or, in other words, if it is an action for an accounting. In the last case cited it was held that the nature of the action and the issues to be tried, whether legal or equitable, might be determined by the pleadings.
The pleadings in the case at bar, especially the answer, clearly disclose a case which is one of equitable cognizance, to be tried by the methods pertaining to courts of equity. We do not, however, rest our decision in this case upon the proposition that the pleadings show that the action is an equitable one, but upon the ground that the complaint discloses it to be such a one. It is true, the prayer of the complaint is for the recovery of money only, but this is not controlling as to the nature of the action; for, if the amount for which judgment is demanded can only be ascertained by an accounting between the parties, it is an equitable one. The first supposed cause of action in the complaint, standing by itself, is, if anything, strictly a legal cause of action. It is alleged therein that the plaintiff's intestate borrowed from the defendant $ 3,700, and gave to him her promissory notes for this amount, and that he paid her $ 153.15 less than the full amount; but in the second cause of action the amount she was indebted to him "on account of the indebtedness set out in the first cause of action" was included in her estimated aggregate indebtedness of $ 6,680, which forms the subject-matter of this second cause of action. It is further alleged that, for the purpose of providing for this entire estimated indebtedness, she gave to the defendant her promissory notes for the amount thereof and secured the payment thereof by a chattel mortgage upon certain property and the crops to be raised on her farm during the then coming season; and in...
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