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119 Pa. 413

Barbey v. Beaver

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided March 26, 1888

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1888-03-26

No. 287 January Term 1888, Sup. Ct.;-court below, No. 442 Equity D. 1887.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1888-03-26

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently December 1987

4 state decisions

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1Opinion,

Mr. Justice Paxson:

¶2The demurrer in this case goes for nothing. It is overruled by the answer. The defendant demurred to the. whole bill and at the same time answered the whole bill. This is not allowable under the rules of equity pleading. They cannot stand together.

¶3A defendant in equity is permitted by the rules to plead or demur to the whole bill or to part of it, and he may demur to part, plead to another part, and answer as to the residue: See Equity Rules, § 31. But he may not plead or answer, and demur also, to the whole bill or to the same part of the bill. If he demur to part and answer to the same part, both cannot stand. The demurrer in such case is overruled by the answer. With much more reason is this the case when there is a demurrer to the whole and an answer to the whole. This rule of equity pleading is so well settled that no argument is necessary. It is sufficient to refer to 1 Daniel Chan. Pr., 660; Mitford Eq. PL, 209; Story’s Eq. PL, § 442.

¶4The decree is reversed at the costs of the appellee ; the demurrer is overruled; the bill reinstated with directions to the court below to proceed therewith according to the practice in equity.

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