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18 Mont. 28

Bennett v. Tillmon

Montana Supreme Court

Decided March 9, 1896

Montana Supreme Court · decided 1896-03-09

Action on promissory notes. The cause was tried before Woody, J. Defendant had judgment below. Statement of the case by the court. This is a suit on three promissory notes. cThe answer admits the execution of the notes, and alleges that they were given in consideration of the purchase by defendant of certain improvements on real estate belonging to one Gr. A. Bennett; that said improvements were sold to defendant by L. J. Warner, the agent of said Gr.

Relies on Bohn Manufacturing Co. v. Harrison

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1896-03-09

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently May 1966

2 district · 10 state decisions

3018961900191019201930194019501960decided

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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Per Curiam.

¶1The plaintiff contends that the answer contains no defense, in that it attempts to vary a written contract by the oral agreement to allow the account pleaded to be offset against and credited upon the notes. This Avas the ground for plaintiff’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, and of his objection to the introduction of any testimony in relation to said agreement.

¶2We do not think the oral agreement, set up in the answer, that G. A. Bennett’s account or indebtedness to defendant was to be offset against or credited on the notes, is an attempt to vary the terms of the written contract as contended. The agreement contained in the answer as to the G. A. Bennett indebtedness or account amounted, in effect, to this : That the defendant, by executing the notes, did not waive the right to set up his accounts against G. A. Bennett against the notes. This in no Avay altered, changed, or varied the terms of the *30notes. It was only a reservation of the right by defendant to pay them by setting up G. A. Bennett’s indebtedness to him as a counterclaim.

¶3In Bohn Manufacturing Co. v. Harrison, 13 Mont. 293, this court held that “parol evidence of an agreement that the acceptance of a bill of„ exchange should not be a waiver of counterclaims which the acceptor then held against the drawer is admissible in an action on the bill, as such evidence contradicts, not the instrument, but merely the presumption of waiver which arises from the fact of its acceptance.” We think this case is directly in point, and decisive of the case at bar.

¶4The appellant assigns as error the action of the court in allowing defendant to amend his answer during the trial. The allowing of an amendment at any stage of the case is a matter largely within the discretion of the court. It does not appear that, by reason of the amendment, a postponement or continuance of the case was rendered necessary, or that appellant made any request therefor. It is not shown how the appellant was injured, or in what respect the court abused its discretion by allowing the amendment.

¶5We think no errors have been shown which would authorize a reversal of the case. The judgment and order appealed from are affirmed.

¶6Affirmed.

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