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134 Ind. 614

Eckert v. Binkley

Indiana Supreme Court

Decided February 22, 1893

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1893-02-22

<p>New Trial.— When Might to File Motion for is Out off by Motion in Arrest of Judgment. — The filing of a motion in arrest of judgment previous to moving for a new trial, cuts off the right to a motion for a new trial, except where the grounds for a new trial are unknown at the time the motion in arrest is made.</p> <p>Pleading. — Supplemental Answer. — Not Subject to Demurrer. — A supplemental answer is not an independent and separate answer, but is a part of the whole answer, and is not subject to a separate demurrer ; but where the additional answer is not a part of a pre7 ceding answer, but is distinct and complete in itself, it may be tested by separate demurrer.</p> <p>Supreme Court. — Decision of. — Law of the Gase. — A decision of the Supreme Court in a case is, when returned to the lower court, the law of the case only in so far as the facts remain the same.</p> <p>Supreme Court Practice. — Answer to Assignment of Errors. — Question of Fact. — While the Supreme Court could consider and decide issues of fact tendered by answering, to the assignment of errors, facts occurring after the judgment and appeal, and supporting such answer by written and oral evidence, yet such is not the practice of the court, and has been resorted to only in rare instances.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1893-02-22

How this case has been cited

Cited by 43 later decisions — most recently March 2007 · most notably Denney v. State ex rel. Basler (1896), Egbert v. EGBERT (1956)

2 federal appellate · 37 state decisions

70189319001910192019301940195019601970198019902000decided

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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¶1On Petition eor a Rehearing.

Howard, J.

¶2We do not think that the opinion in this case is susceptible of the interpretation given it by appellee, to the effect that the court holds that an answer to an assignment of errors might not be filed in the Supreme Court, setting up facts occurring after the judgment and appeal, and supporting such answer by written and even oral evidence.

¶3While this court could consider and decide issues of fact so tendered, and while it has done so in rare instan*624ces, yet, as the opinion says, “such, certainly, has not been the practice.”

Filed June 6, 1893.

¶4The spirit of the statute, and the very nature of this court, as a court of errors and appeals, tend to confine attention to questions of law, and to require that questions of fact be tried in the courts of original jurisdiction. Such being the prevailing and proper practice, it would be manifestly inequitable to hold that appellee was too late in filing his answer of prior adjudication in the trial court after the return of the case from the former appeal. Granting that this court might have entertained that plea had it been here presented, as appellee claims it should have been, yet it was not too late when filed on the taking up of the case for retrial. The purpose of the opinion was not to decide anything further than this on that question.

¶5Appellee also contends that we did not decide the claim made by him that the answer, while professing to answer the whole complaint, answered only a part of it, and hence that his demurrer to the answer was properly sustained. Appellee admits that a plea of former adjudication, when well made, is a bar to the further maintenance of the action. How, then, can it be said that it was not error to sustain the demurrer to this answer?

¶6. We have given careful attention to the able and earnest petition and brief of counsel for a rehearing of this case, but can find in it no reason for changing the conclusion formerly reached by us.

¶7The petition for a rehearing is overruled.

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