Easley v. Prewitt

Decided February 15, 1866

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1866-02-15

The petition sot forth a contract made with plaintiff by defendants for the building of a church, alleged the performance of the contract, the acceptance of the work, and the amount due thereon; and then alleged, that more than three months before the commencement of this action, he gave the said defendants notice in writing that he would proceed to enforce his lien, by the sale of said church property, as is provided in said contract heretofore mentioned, for the purpose of…

Relies on Northcraft v. Martin

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1866-02-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently December 1911

4 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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Wagner, Judge,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2The demurrer in this case was improperly sustained. A petition is not demurrable because it asks a judgment not *363warranted by the averments ; nor is its character always determined by the relief it prays for. The court may grant any relief consistent with the case made and embraced within the issues. (R. C. 1855, p. 1280, § 12; Northcraft v. Martin, 28 Mo. 469.) The petition stated a good cause of action on the agreement; but if the plaintiff wishes to foreclose his lien on the building, he ought to amend his petition,and set out the condition and the breach.

¶3The judgment will be reversed and the cause remanded.

Judge Holmes concurs; Judge Lovelace absent.