Teabout v. Roper

• Decision Date: 15 December 1883
• Citation: 17 N.W. 906,62 Iowa 603
• Parties: TEABOUT v. ROPER AND OTHERS.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

62 Iowa 603

17 N.W. 906

TEABOUT

v.ROPER AND OTHERS.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Filed December 15, 1883.

Appeal from Winnesheik circuit court.

The defendant recovered a judgment against the plaintiff by default, and this action was brought to set the same aside, under sections 3154, 3157, and 3158 of the Code, on the ground of “unavoidable casualty or misfortune,” which prevented the plaintiff from defending the action, to which it is alleged she had a good defense. The court held the plaintiff was not entitled to the relief asked, and she appeals.L. Bullis, C. Wellington, and Brown & Porter, for appellant.

Cooley & Akers, for appellee.

SEEVERS, J.

Notice of the prior action was duly served on the plaintiff, and she testified that she did not suppose it concerned her individually, and she therefore gave the same to her husband, and failed to defend the action; that about the same time many other notices and papers were served on her which she gave her husband, and in which she was not individually interested; that in business matters she relied on her husband, and that she had but little business experience; that she did not read the notice; and if she had believed the plaintiff in the action was trying to make her real estate liable, she would have defended. The return of the sheriff on the notice showed that he had read the same to the defendant. The notice stated that the relief asked in the petition was that a certain lien of the plaintiff in the action, upon certain real estate in Winnesheik county, be decreed superior and prior to the interest of the present plaintiff, and that a certain deed to said premises from Francis Teabout (plaintiff's husband) to her be decreed null and void. In another action commenced by Ray & Co. against the plaintiff she employed an attorney to defend for her. The plaintiff has been married 46 years, and therefore is well advanced in life. But there is no evidence tending to show her mental faculties are impaired, or that she is in bad health. Nor is it claimed that she is not capable of understanding business matters. It must be assumed she knew, or was bound to know, when the notice was read to her that her individual rights were concerned in the action; that it was brought to set aside a conveyance of real estate made to her by her husband, and to enforce a lien thereon. Ordinarily, persons capable of acquiring property in any manner known to the law, have sufficient capacity to take care of and...