Clark v. Chandler

• Decision Date: 21 June 1917
• Docket Number: No. 11344.,11344.
• Citation: 279 Ill. 23,116 N.E. 609
• Parties: CLARK et al. v. CHANDLER et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

279 Ill. 23

116 N.E. 609

CLARK et al.

v.CHANDLER et al.

No. 11344.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June 21, 1917.

Appeal from Superior Court, Cook County; Charles M. Foell, Judge.

Suit by Isaiah R. Clark and others, executors, against Frank R. Chandler and others. Judgment for defendants, and complainants appeal. Cause transferred.

See, also, 274 Ill. 275, 113 N. E. 617.

Henry W. Leman, of Chicago (Frank H. Culver, of Chicago, of counsel), for appellants.

Shepard, McCormick, Thomason, Kirkland & Patterson, of Chicago, for appellees.

CARTWRIGHT, J.

The superior court of Cook county sustained the demurrer of appellees, Frank R. Chandler, Anna S. Chandler, Buckingham Chandler, and Rosalie A. Selfridge, to the bill of complaint filed against them by the appellants Isaiah R. Clark and Henry B. Cram, surviving executors of the last will and testament of Charles F. Wright, deceased, and dismissed the bill at the costs of the appellants. An appeal to this court was prayed for, allowed, and perfected.

The material facts alleged in the bill and admitted by the demurrer are as follows: Charles F. Wright filed in the superior court of Cook county five bills to foreclose five separate trust deeds securing five separate notes of Albert Crane for different amounts and on different pieces of real estate. While the suits were pending Charles F. Wright died, and the appellants and William J. Wright, his executors, were substituted as complainants. Rosalie A. Selfridge intervened in the suits and became a defendant, and a decree was entered in each case for the foreclosure of the respective trust deeds. From the five decrees five separate appeals to the Appellate Court for the First District were prosecuted, and in each case Buckingham Chandler was surety on the bond with Frank R. Chandler, Anna S. Chandler, and Rosalie A. Selfridge. The five appeals were consolidated for hearing in the Appellate Court and were heard on one set of abstracts and briefs. During the pendency of the appeals William J. Wright, one of the executors, died, and, his death being suggested, the causes were continued in the names of the surviving executors. The five decrees were affirmed with an immaterial modification. The decrees were executed by sales of the real estate, resulting in a deficiency in each case. Afterwards complainants brought suits in the superior court on the five appeal bonds and recovered a judgment in each case in debt for the several amounts of the bonds, with damages, of $1,500, $1,033.01, $587.06, $600.44, and $190.14, with costs in each case. On appeal to the Appellate Court for the First District the cases were assigned to Branch C, where they were consolidated for hearing and submitted on one set of abstracts and briefs and taken under advisement. Afterward the main court took the cases from Branch C and entered judgments in the five cases, reversing the judgments of the superior court and refusing to remand the causes, on the ground that there was no right of action on the appeal bonds. In one case in which the damages exceeded...