Sugart v. Mays
| Decision Date | 31 July 1875 |
| Citation | 54 Ga. 554 |
| Parties | John C. Sugart, plaintiff in error. v. Mace A. Mays, defendant in error. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Ejectment. Deeds. Mortgage. Usury. Pleadings. Equity. Evidence. Custom. Before Judge Knight. Cobb Superior Court. November term, 1874.
This case was tried before Judge Underwood. The motion for a new trial was heard by Judge Knight.
The facts are sufficiently stated in the opinion.
Irwin & Anderson; W. T. & W. J. Winn, for plaintiff in error.
George N. Lester, for defendant. *Bleckley, Judge.
Plaintiff in ejectment must recover on his own title. 1, 2. Here the only title which he exhibited was a deed from the defendant to himself dated in 1867. If that deed did not invest him with title, he was wholly without any, for he had never been in possession of the premises, and, for ought that appears, had no claim to them, except under the deed in question. At the making of the deed defendant was in possession, and has so remained. The real and only question, therefore, was as to the character and effect of that deed. The defendant, by his special-plea, alleged that it was void, because made as part of an usurious contract, and to evade the laws against usury. The plea set out a contract infected with usury, and averred that the deed was made as a part of that contract, to secure the payment of the money, and was intended as a mortgage, the form of the transaction being a contrivance to evade the law. Here was the hinge upon which the whole case ought to have turned. The parties were at issue on this defense, and there was evidence both for and against it—strong evidence, strongly conflicting. The jury should have been sent out, under proper instructions, to grapple with this evidence and decide the issue—the issue which the plea made, and which the evidence on one side tended to support, and on the other to disprove. But the rugged path along which the jury must have walked to arrive at the material and controlling truth in the case, was made smooth, or rather cut short, by the court. The court instructed them that the defendant\'s plea could not avail him, unless he had offered to pay the debt and interest. Now, whether such an offer had been made, was not embraced in the issue on trial. The plea did not affirm any such thing, and there was no evidence going to establish it. If it was meant that the jury should search for the truth on that question, they were sent to find what was not lost. If it was meant that the plea was essentially defective, as wanting the averment of suchan offer, that was a matter for the court to deal with alone, and it was an inadvertance *to refer to the jury any question whatever touching the defense set up by the plea. If the defense was incomplete, as pleaded, it was idle to test the truth of it....
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Cochran v. Groover
... ... Such attack on this deed is ... available to her at law, and she does not have to resort to ... equity to defeat the deed. Sugart v. Mays, 54 Ga ... 554. The court did not err in allowing this amendment ... 3. To ... the petition as thus amended the ... ...
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Cochran v. Groover
...Such attack on this deed is available to her at law, and she does not have to resort to equity to defeat the deed. Sugart v. Mays, 54 Ga. 554. The court did not err in allowing this amendment. 3. To the petition as thus amended the defendant again demurred. In this demurrer he insists on al......
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Hendricks v. W. G. Middlebrooks Co
...he and another entered, whether the latter had or had not, in prior dealings with others, given recognition to the custom. Sugart v. Mays, 54 Ga. 554. This is so for the simple reason that to so assert would do violence to the real truth of the matter. As has been seen, the plaintiff allege......
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Hendricks v. W.G. Middlebrooks Co.
...which he and another entered, whether the latter had or had not, in prior dealings with others, given recognition to the custom. Sugart v. Mays, 54 Ga. 554. This is so the simple reason that to so assert would do violence to the real truth of the matter. As has been seen, the plaintiff alle......