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41 Wis. 186

Farrell v. Drees

Wisconsin Supreme Court

Decided August 15, 1876

Wisconsin Supreme Court · decided 1876-08-15

The defendant John B. Drees was a licensed saloon -keeper in the town of Pesht-igo, having given the bond required by sec. 1, ch. 127, Laws of 1872. The defendant Edward Drees and another were his sureties in such bond. There is an alleged defect in the bond, but it is not material to the decision of the case.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1876-08-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently May 1928

5 state decisions

30187618801890190019101920decided

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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LyoN, J.

¶1Ch. 127, Laws of 1872, under which the bond in suit was given, was repealed by cli. 179, Laws of 1874, before the present action was tried.

¶2The plaintiff’s right of action was given by the former act, and depended entirely upon it. In Dillon v. Linder, 36 Wis., 344, we held, after much consideration, that all rights of action given by, and all actions brought under, the act of 1872, which had not proceeded to final judgment before the repeal of that act, fell with such repeal. This decision, the correctness of which we have never doubted, rules the present case. The fact that this action is not brought directly against the saloon-keeper alone, under sec. 6 of the act of 1874, but upon the bond, under sec. 1, is of no importance. In either |Case the right of action depends upon the statute, and the repeal of the statute before judgment, without any saving clause, abolished the right.

¶3It is argued, however, that because the evidence has not been preserved by a bill of exceptions, it should be presumed that a valid cause of action of some kind was proved on the trial. In the absence of a bill of exceptions, this court will presume, in support of the judgment of the court below, that all of the allegations contained in the pleadings and essential to the judgment were proved. We know of no. authority for extending a presumption beyond that. Hence, in this cause the presumption is that all the allegations in the complaint were duly proved. There it stops. But that will not save the judgment, because, when it was rendered, the facts stated in the complaint were not sufficient to constitute a cause of action.

¶4The learned counsel for the plaintiff have submitted a most ingenious and able argument in support of the judgment; but *191it is unnecessary to comment upon it at length, for tbe views above stated are decisive of tbe case.

¶5The judgment of tbe circuit court must be reversed, and tbe cause remanded with directions to dismiss tbe action.

¶6By the Court. — So ordered.

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