Ruch v. Jones

Decided March 15, 1863

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1863-03-15

Louis Lazo Commissioner’s Court. This was a suit instituted in the Law Commissioner’s Court on an account for painting and glazing. The defendant Jones in the petition is charged as the debt- or, and the defendant Saugrain as the owner, of the ground or property sought to be charged with the lien of demand.

Relies on Huntington v. House

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1863-03-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently July 1925

5 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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Dryden, Judge,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2The case hardly presents the point the parties wish decid*394ed, which is, whether the joint answer of several co-defendants is not sufficiently verified by the affidavit of one of them. We have no hesitation in answering the question in the affirmative. (Huntington & wife v. House, 22 Mo. 365.)

¶3If the verification had been insufficient, still it was wrong to render judgment by default so long as the answer was on the record. The right practice in such case is to move to strike out the imperfectly verified answer, and after it is thus disposed of, then take the default; but as long as the answer stands, no matter whether imperfectly verified or not verified at all, it is error to enter a default. The affidavit is no part of the answer.

¶4Let the judgment be reversed and the cause remanded.

The other judges concur.