Engler v. Bate
| Decision Date | 31 March 1854 |
| Citation | 19 Mo. 543 |
| Parties | ENGLER, Plaintiff in Error, v. BATE, Defendant in Error. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
1. A denial of indebtedness is not a sufficient answer to a petition which sufficiently charges that the indebtedness arose out of breaches of a specific contract. The breaches must be denied.
2. A case where the answer filed sets up no sufficient defense is not one coming within the rule of the St. Louis Circuit Court, requiring the plaintiff to file an abstract of the pleadings.
When this cause was called for trial in the Circuit Court, no abstract having been filed in accordance with a rule of the court, the defendant claimed a non-suit, which was granted by the court. The rule is as follows:
“In all causes commenced since July 4th, 1849, which are to be tried by a jury, the plaintiff shall file, for the use of the court, two days before the same are set for trial, an abstract of the pleadings, indicating clearly the issues to be tried; in default of which, the same will not be considered as prepared for trial, and the plaintiff shall be non-suited, or the cause be continued at his cost, if the defendant so elect.”
The pleadings are sufficiently stated in the opinion of the court. The plaintiff sued out a writ of error.
C. C. Carroll, for plaintiff in error.
The rule of the Circuit Court is obscure, ambiguous and unconstitutional. It is a delegation of the judicial power vested in the court to the defendant in the cause.
Knox & Kellogg, for defendant in error.
The petition in this case, although it alleges that the defendant is indebted to the plaintiff in five different sums, on different considerations, and although it refers to an account filed with the petition, shows sufficiently that the whole demand arose out of a contract for the purchase of pork by the plaintiff from the defendant. It is a specimen of the very great looseness in pleading, occasioned by the reform introduced into our practice. Instead of setting out the contract, and stating the particulars in which the defendant had failed to comply with it, the petition states indebtedness of the defendant in specific sums, for his failure to comply with his contract in different particulars, leaving the court to conjecture what the contract was, but alluding to it in such terms as to show that there was a contract for the sale of three hundred barrels of mess pork by the defendant to the plaintiff. One or two of the statements in the petition will show the form of allegation adopted by the pleader. It is alleged that the defendant is indebted to the plaintiff in the sum of thirty-three dollars and twenty-five cents, “for...
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...To deny the indebtedness is no denial of the existence of the contract out of which the petition avers the indebtedness arose. Engler v. Bate, 19 Mo. 543." effect of the denial by plaintiff in her replication to defendants' answer of all allegations therein except as to the facts alleged in......
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...To deny the indebtedness is no denial of the existence of the contract out of which the petition avers the indebtedness arose. Engler v. Bate, 19 Mo. 543." The effect of the denial by plaintiff, in her replication to defendants' answer, of all allegations therein, except as to the facts all......
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