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31 Minn. 183

Hedderly v. Downs

Supreme Court of Minnesota

Decided October 22, 1883

Supreme Court of Minnesota · decided 1883-10-22

Plaintiff brought this action against Henry Downs and James Baxter, in the district court for Hennepin county, alleging in his complaint the making of a contract between himself and the defendants, whereby he granted and permitted to the defendants the right to quarry and remove stone from certain premises, and the defendants agreed to pay him for the stone removed at a specified rate, and that there was due him, under the contract, for stone so removed, the sum of…

Relies on Daby v. . Ericsson · Nelson v. Robson · Coit v. Waples

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1883-10-22

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently July 1929

5 state decisions

2018831890190019101920decided

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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Berry, J.

¶1This action is founded upon a sealed agreement between plaintiff and one E. Hedderly, jointly, as parties of the first part, and defendants, jointly, as parties of the second. Prima facie, then, any action upon it against defendants should be brought by'the Hedderlys jointly, for, the cause of action being joint, the action must be joint also. Dicey on Parties, 11, 104. If anything has occurred to take the case out of this general rule, it should be alleged in the complaint and proved; but no understanding between the Hedderlys prior to the execution of the agreement could have any such effect, for the fact would still be that the agreement was made by and to them jointly. But if one of two joint parties upon the same side of a contract decease, the survivor, and he alone, can maintain an action on behalf of that side. 1 Chit. Pl. 19; Freeman v. Curran, 1 Minn. 144, (169;) Dicey on Parties, 128; Pom. Rem. § 126; Bucknam v. Brett, 35 Barb. 596; Daby v. Ericsson, 45 N. Y. 786; 1 Wait, Pr. 147.

¶2In the case at bar the agreement ran to the Hedderlys jointly; but, one of them having deceased, the survivor — the plaintiff — is the *186proper party to bring an action thereon against defendants. Regularly, the plaintiff should have alleged the decease of E. Hedderly in the complaint, but his failure to do so is remedied by an allegation of the fact in the answer. Bennett v. Phelps, 12 Minn. 216, (326;) Shartle v. City of Minneapolis, 17 Minn. 284, (308;) Rollins v. St. Paul Lumber Co., 21 Minn. 5; Warner v. Lockerby, 28 Minn. 28; Lesher v. Getman, 30 Minn. 321.

¶3Upon the conceded facts of the case, this action was, then, properly brought by the plaintiff alone, upon the contract made by and with the two Hedderlys jointly. The case would appear to have been tried below and argued here upon notions of the law somewhat differing from those which we have expressed, and for that reason evidence was introduced, which, from our standpoint, was improper, but which was also immaterial and harmless.

¶4Order and judgment affirmed.

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