Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

22 Tex. 348

May v. Taylor

Texas Supreme Court

Decided July 1, 1858

Texas Supreme Court · decided 1858-07-01

Tried below before the Hon. Fielding Jones. This action was brought in the court below, by the appellee, against the appellant, upon a promissory note, given by appellant for a tract of land, purchased by him at an administrator’s sale. The note was secured by mortgage upon the land sold. The petition, besides claiming a judgment upon the note, alleged the fact that it was secured by mortgage, which was set out and made a part of the petition, with a prayer of foreclosure.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1858-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently October 1945

12 state decisions

301858186018701880189019001910192019301940decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Roberts, J.

¶1There are two grounds of error, well assigned, in this case, to wit, striking out the plea of payment, and rendering judgment on the mortgage.

¶2The plea of payment is general, without specification of time and place, with certainty, and would have been subject to a special exception, regularly filed. A motion to strike out would be more appropriate, when the plea may be treated as a nullity, or when it is wanting in some essential requisite, as an affidavit, when that is necessary to its validity. A defence, defectively set forth, should be excepted to specially. It is presumed, that the court would not have stricken out this plea, had attention been called to it.

¶3The court instructed the jury to find for the plaintiff the amount of the note and interest, and their verdict was in exact conformity to the charge. The judgment was rendered, not only upon the note, but also upon the mortgage, concerning which there was no finding in the verdict. The province of the verdict, is, to declare the facts upon which the judgment is *350to be predicated. Tbe existence of tbe mortgage, as well as tbe note, was put in issue, and tbe entire omission of a finding upon the mortgage, is fatal to tbe judgment, so far as it relates to tbe mortgage. (Patterson v. The United States, 2 Wheat. Rep. 221.)

¶4There are other questions in tbe case in relation to tbe pleading, making parties, &c.; but as tbe pleading may be reformed and amended, and other parties regularly brought in, they need not be referred to further. Judgment will be reversed, and tbe cause remanded.

¶5Reversed and remanded.

/22/tex/348 · .json · Public domain