Caldwell v. Haley

• Decision Date: 31 December 1848
• Parties: JOHN M. CALDWELL, Appellant, v. CHARLES Q. HALEY, Appellee
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

3 Tex. 317

JOHN M. CALDWELL, Appellant,

v.CHARLES Q. HALEY, Appellee

Supreme Court of Texas.

December Term, 1848.

Appeal from Houston County.

It is essential, in our system of pleadings, to state the facts on which the party intends to rely as constituting his cause of action or ground of defense, with such circumstantial accuracy as to apprise the opposite party of what is intended to be proved at the trial.

In our pleadings, the common counts of a declaration, in the English system, are unknown. Every action is a special action on the particular case, and the petition must be framed in respect to the particular grievance for which the party seeks redress.

In proceedings by attachment, there should be an exact and literal compliance with the requirements of the statute.

The appellee filed his petition, alleging that the appellant, who was defendant below, “on the _____ day of _____, 1847, was indebted to him in the sum of twelve hundred dollars, as well for work and labor, care and diligence, and divers materials and necessary things in and about the said work by your petitioner, to and for the use of said Caldwell, at his special instance and request, before that time done, performed, bestowed and promised; and for divers goods, wares and merchandise sold and delivered; and divers sums of money lent and advanced, paid, laid out and expended before that time by your petitioner, to and for the use of the said Caldwell, at his like special instance and request; as also for divers sums of money before that time by said Caldwell had and received, to the use of your petitioner; and said Caldwell being so indebted to your petitioner, in consideration thereof, undertook and faithfully promised your petitioner to pay him the said sum of twelve hundred dollars, when he should be thereafter requested,” etc. Appended to this petition, there was an affidavit as follows: “That said John M. Caldwell is justly indebted to said Haley in the full and just sum of nine hundred and ninety-eight dollars, and that said Caldwell is about to remove beyond the limits of this state, so that the ordinary process of the law cannot be served upon him, and thereby said Haley will probably lose his debt;” concluding with a prayer that an attachment issue.

On the same day, a citation and also an attachment issued. At the return term, being the spring term, 1847, the defendant appeared and moved to quash the attachment, assigning, among other causes, that the plaintiff had not made “affidavit in writing of the truth of the matters set forth in his petition.” He also, at the same time, excepted to the sufficiency of the petition, and answered by a general denial. The motion to quash the attachment and the exceptions to the petition were overruled by the court. It was proved upon the trial that the defendant had acknowledged himself indebted to the plaintiff in a sum under a thousand and over nine hundred dollars, for the purchase of a negro girl. That the defendant was to take up a note of the plaintiff given for the girl for about the sum of nine hundred dollars, for which he was to have credit. This was all the evidence relative to the indebtedness. There was a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff; a motion for a new trial, overruled, and the defendant appealed.

MILLER and JENNINGS for appellant.

Mr. Justice WHEELER, after stating the facts of the case, delivered the opinion of the court.

The only questions which it is deemed material to consider, relate to the overruling of the exceptions to the petition and the motion to quash the attachment.

In our pleadings, it has uniformly been held essential to state the facts on which the party intends to rely as constituting his cause of action or ground of defense, with such circumstantial accuracy as to apprise the opposite party of what is intended to be proved at the trial. [Wright vs. Wright (decided at the present term); Mimms vs. Mitchell, 1 Tex. Rep. 443; Carter & Hunt vs. Wallace, 2 Tex. Rep.] That the petition in the case before us does not contain the requisite accuracy and certainty, is manifest. It apprises the defendant of no one fact going to constitute the plaintiff's cause of action, with time, place, quantity, value, or any other circumstance of identity or certainty. It can, in no just sense, be said to contain a statement of the facts of the plaintiff's case, so set forth as to apprise the defendant of the real nature of the plaintiff's demand, and of the facts intended to be proved. On...