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5 Colo. 233

Hurd v. Smith

Supreme Court of Colorado

Decided April 15, 1880

Supreme Court of Colorado · decided 1880-04-15

Margaret Smith, the appellee, commenced her action in the District Court of Clear Creek County, upon two certain promissory notes, given by the appellants, Nathan S. and William J. Hurd, payable to her order, dated July 5, 1877, for two hundred dollars 'each, due eight and eleven months from date, respectively.

Relies on Parks v. Holmes · Finley v. Steele

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1880-04-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently May 1962

13 state decisions

40188018901900191019201930194019501960decided

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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Elbert, O. J.

¶1The defendants set up in their answer six separate defenses. A demurrer was sustained as to the second, third, fourth and fifth defenses, and overruled as to the first and sixth. The defendants stood by their fifth defense, and took leave to amend as to the others. This action waived their right to assign error on the action of the court in sustaining the demurrer, except as to their fifth defense. The fourth defense was not amended and must be considered as abandoned. The amendments made to the second and third defenses were of immaterial matters, and in. nowise changed the nature of the defense sought to be interposed, the sufficiency of which had already been passed upon by the court.

¶2There is no substantial difference between the defenses as they stood and the defenses as amended, and it was entirely within the discretion of the court to strike the amendments from the files.

¶3In the case of Heaton v. Myers, 4 Col. 62, the court says: ‘ A defendant has no right to continue to present the same defense by different pleas. Parks v. Holmes, 22 Ill. 522. Nor may he repeatedly refer to the decision of the court, the legal sufficiency of the same defense, under the guise of an amended plea.”

¶4The fifth defense was bad. Our statute does not in terms create implied covenants. It is also a rule that where there are express covenants in a deed, other covenants will not be implied. Willard, Peal Estate and Con. 411; Frost v. Raymond, 2 Caine’s, 190; Van DuKam v. Van DuKam, 11 Johns *122; Finley v. Stere 23 Ill. 56. This disposes of the argument of counsel concerning the implied covenants of the deeds set up.

¶5There was but the one covenant in the deeds set forth in the defendants’ answer—the covenant of warranty. If the costs and counsel fees paid out and expended in and about the eject*240ment suit are recoverable at all, they are recoverable only as damages resulting from a breach of the covenant of warranty in the plaintiff’s deed.

¶6In actions for breach of this and other covenants contained in conveyances of real estate, costs and counsel fees incurred in defending the grantor’s title, are by some of the States allowed as damages resulting from a breach of the covenant. Sedgwick Meas. Dam. "*176-*182, and cases cited. There is no breach of a covenant of warranty until eviction. Sedgwick Meas. Dam. *152-*158.

¶7No eviction is alleged by the defense in this case ; on the other hand, it shows that the action of ejectment is still pending and undetermined. There being no breach, there could be no recovery. The demurrer was properly sustained.

¶8By their first defense the defendants claimed a set-off of ten dollars, with interest from January 1, 1870. By their sixth defense they claimed a set-off of $45.45, taxes paid January 14th, 1878, for and on behalf of the plaintiff, with interest at the rate of ten per cent, per annum.

¶9The plaintiff admitted these two claims and consented to their allowance. Through some inadvertence in the entry of judgment, no allowance of interest was made on these items of set-off. For this reason the judgment is reversed and the cause remanded, with directions to enter judgment, corrected in this particular.

¶10Reversed.

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