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162 Ind. 567

Union Traction Co. v. Forst

Indiana Supreme Court

Decided May 10, 1904

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1904-05-10

From Huntington Circuit Court; J. C. Branyan, Judge. Action by the Union Traction Company of Indiana against Alfred Forst, executor of the last will and testament of Sarah Forst, deceased. From a judgment in favor of defendant, plaintiff appeals. Transferred from Appellate Court, under §1887u Burns 1901.

Relies on Berkshire v. Caley · Neu v. Town of Bourbon · People's National Bank v. State ex rel. Emerson

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Reversed · Decided 1904-05-10

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently May 1930

10 state decisions

501904191019201930decided

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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Jordan, J.

¶1Appellant prosecuted this action in the lower court to set aside the probate of the last will and testament of Sarah Forst, and to revoke and cancel letters testamentary issued therein to appellee Alfred Forst. Appellee demurred to the complaint upon two grounds; (1) Want of capacity of the plaintiff to sue; (2) insufficiency of facts. The court appears to have sustained the demurrer upon both grounds, and, upon appellant’s refusal to plead further, judgment was rendered against it on demurrer. *568Tlio transcript was filed on March 28, 1903, and the cause was submitted on April 27. Appellant filed its brief on June 25, 1903. Ten months and over have elapsed since that date, but appellee has wholly failed to file any brief or to offer any excuse for his neglect.

¶2Much argument is advanced and many authorities cited by counsel for appellant to establish the assignment that the court erred in sustaining the.demurrer to its complaint. Its counsel assert that the question presented is one which has not been decided either by this or the Appellate Court. By reason of the failure of appellee to file a brief in the appeal, we are left wholly unaided, so far as he is concerned, in the determination of the questions presented. His neglect, therefore, under the circumstances, must be deemed to be a confession of the error assigned by appellant, and accordingly operates to reverse the judgment. Berkshire v. Caley, 157 Ind. 1; Neu v. Town of Bourbon, 157 Ind. 476; People’s Nat. Bank v. State, ex rel., 159 Ind. 353; Moore v. Zumbrum, post, 696. See also, authorities cited in American Digest (Century ed.), §3110.

¶3Without considering the questions presented, the judgment below is reversed, and the ruling on demurrer vacated at the cost of appellee, without prejudice to either party, and the cause is remanded to the lower court for further proceedings.

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