Meyers v. Dittmar
| Decision Date | 01 January 1877 |
| Citation | 47 Tex. 373 |
| Parties | A. C. MEYERS v. A. DITTMAR. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
APPEAL from Bexar. Tried below before the Hon. George H. Noonan.
This was a suit brought by A. C. Meyers, against the estate of E. Abat, to recover the amount of a note for $3,000, dated May 8, 1862, and payable in three years. After Abat gave the note, he made a will, and died, leaving his wife executrix independent of the control of the Probate Court. She had the will probated, filed the inventory, and did what was necessary to administer the estate without regard to the Probate Court. She sold personal property, and paid off the debts of the estate, except to those parties who refused to take the currency of the country, among them the plaintiff in this suit, whose agent admitted that the amount loaned the testator, and for which the note was given, was Confederate money, but gave as a reason for refusing to take it, that it had since depreciated. The executrix died, and Dittmar administered.
To the answer and amended answer, containing allegations to which it is necessary, in view of the opinion, to refer, the plaintiff excepted, that no such defense as that the consideration of the note was Confederate money can be set up after the allowance and approval, which had the effect of a judgment, and which could not be attacked or set aside collaterally, but must be maintained, if at all, by a separate proceeding instituted for that purpose.
The case was tried in the court below, an appeal taken to this court, and it was reversed and remanded. The plaintiff then amended, and alleged that the money borrowed was paid out in the construction of his homestead, at par. Defendant then amended and set up a tender of Confederate money to plaintiff.
Upon the trial, the court below charged the jury in almost the language of the Supreme Court in the case of Estate of E. Abat v. A. C. Meyers, decided at a former term.
Among other charges, the following was given: “If you believe from the evidence that the note sued on was given for Confederate money, the plaintiff cannot recover.”
Verdict and judgment for Dittmar, from which Meyers appealed.Walder & Upson, for appellant.
W. B. Leigh, for appellee.
All the questions upon which it is necessary for us to pass in this case have been heretofore considered and determined in accordance with the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in similar cases. (See Mathews v. Rucker, 41 Tex., 636;Short v. Abernathy, 42 Tex., 94;San Patricio County v. McLane, 44 Tex., 392, and other cases not yet reported.) It would, therefore, be a useless consumption of time to reiterate the views which have been already expressed in regard to them.
In the cases to which we have reference, the court directly overruled the entire line of previous decisions on suits upon executory contracts, which, in any way, involved in their consideration what is commercially known as Confederate money.
The instructions given the jury in this case were unquestionably in strict accord with the view formerly entertained by ...
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Ex parte Granger
...subsequent appeal. McCrea v. Cubilla Condominium Corp., 769 S.W.2d 261, at 263 (Tex.App.--Houston [1st] 1988, pet. den.). Cf. Meyers v. Dittmar, 47 Tex. 373 (1877) (Texas Supreme Court declined to follow its own disposition in an earlier appeal where it had revised the law in the interim). ......
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In re Reamer's Estate
...Denver & Rio Grande R. Co., 66 Colo. 510, 180 P. 683; United Shoe Machinery Co. v. Ramlose, 231 Mo. 508, 132 S.W. 1133; Meyers v. Dittmar, 47 Tex. 373; Shell Oil Co. v. Henry, 175 Wash. 298, 27 P.2d 582; Matthews v. Matthews, 154 N.Y. 288, 48 N.E. 531; Johnson v. Cadillac Motor Car Co., 2 C......
- McLane v. Paschal