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131 Ind. 522

Havens v. Gard

Indiana Supreme Court

Decided May 11, 1892

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1892-05-11

<p>Practice. — Answer.—Filing During Trial. — As to whether an answer should be permitted to be filed in a cause during trial is a matter of discretion with the court, and can only be taken advantage of when there is an abuse of discretion.</p> <p>Juey. — Filing Pleadings, After Swearing of. — Besmearing of.— Unavailable Frror on Second Trial. — Where pleadings are filed in a cause, after the jury have been sworn to try said cause, and the jury is not resworn after filing said pleadings, and there is a second trial of said cause, the failure to reswear the jury in the first trial is not error to be taken advantage of in the second.</p>

Relies on Farmers Loan & Trust Co. v. Canada & St. Louis Railway Co. · Buchanan v. Berkshire Life Insurance · Purple v. Farrington

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1892-05-11

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently January 1947

8 state decisions

30189219001910192019301940decided

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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Elliott, C. J.

¶1This was a proceeding in attachment. There were several plaintiffs having distinct causes of action, but the cases were consolidated in one proceeding and there was one trial. The plaintiffs succeeded upon the main *523issue, but failed upon the issue joined on the affidavits in attachment.

¶2The appellants moved for judgment in the ancillary proceeding upon the ground that, as the statements of the affidavits in attachment were not denied, they were entitled to enforce the attachment. As the record presents the case to us, answers denying the statements of the affidavits were filed before the motion of the appellants was interposed, so that the question is not whether, if there had been no answer, the motion would have been well taken, but the question is whether the motion having been filed after the answers were in, there was material error in overruling it. We think it clear that at the time the motion was filed the answers in denial prevented success upon the motion. At that time the motion was not well taken, since there was a direct issue. It is quite doubtful whether the appellants, by submitting the case for trial, did not waive an answer and treat the statements of the affidavits as controverted. If there was, as is now assumed, no issue, then the court and the parties did a vain and idle thing, inasmuch as they undertook to try a case where there was no controversy. We think the reasonable rule in such cases is to assume that an answer was waived and an issue impliedly joined. Many analogous cases warrant this conclusion. Buchanan v. Berkshire, etc., Co., 96 Ind. 510, and cases cited; June v. Payne, 107 Ind. 307; Purple v. Farrington, 119 Ind. 164; Thames, etc., Co. v. Canada, etc., Co., 127 Ind. 250 (54), and cases cited. But, however this may be, it is quite clear that there was no error in overruling the motion. If thére was error at all, it was in abusing the discretion vested in the court by permitting answers to be filed, so that the point attempted to be made by the appellants is not presented by the record. But if it were presented, we could not hold that there was an abuse of discretion. This conclusion is so well settled that it is unnecessary to cite authorities.

¶3The position of the appellants that the jury should have *524been resworn after the answers were filed, if maintainable in any case, is certainly not maintainable in such a case as the one before us. There was no judgment upon the verdict of the jury, for there was a second trial and a finding by the court upon which the judgment from which this appeal is prosecuted was rendered, so that the question whether there was or was not error in failing to reswear the jury before whom the first trial was had is utterly immaterial.

Filed May 11, 1892.

¶4We have studied the evidence, but we can not disturb the finding, for we are unable to say that there is no evidence sustaining the finding of the court.

¶5Judgment affirmed.

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