Brooks v. McFarland

Decided January 15, 1852

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1852-01-15

Tried before the Hon. Wm. R. Smith. This was an action of assumpsit, for services as an attorney at law and solicitor in chancery. The declaration contains the common counts only, three in number, for an indebitatus assumpsit, for work and labor, and on a quantum meruit.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““Tile court erred in overruling the demurrer. The error of the court in sustaining the plea entered of course into the trial and instruction to the jury.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Aldridge

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1852-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently December 1914

1 federal appellate · 3 state decisions

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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PHELAN, J.

¶1There can be no doubt of the coi-rectness of the charge of the court below, under the proof, if the statute of limitations had been properly pleaded.

¶2The precise question here raised by the demurrer to the plea of the statute of limitations was decided by this court in the case of Winston v. The Trustees of the University, 1 Ala. Rep. 124, where the court held, that where the declaration contained the common counts only, and the statute of limitations of three years was interposed as a bar, the plea is not good unless it avers that the demand of the plaintiff is for an open account. For the reason of the court at length, see that case. The court erred in overruling the demurrer. The error of the court in sustaining the plea, entered of course into the trial and instruction to the jury.

¶3The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded.