Lang v. Leith
Lang v. Leith
Opinion of the Court
“(4) Plaintiff claims of the defendant the sum of $725, due for work and labor done by plaintiff at the request of defendant during the year 1915, which amount, with the interest thereon, is due and unpaid.”
If the objection had been taken by timely demurrer in the court below, the demurrer *296 would doubtless have been sustained. Smythe v. Dothan F. & M. Co., 166 Ala. 253; 1 Kelly v. Burke, 132 Ala, 241. 2 But a general demurrer does not raise the point. Code 1907, § 5340; Henley v. Bush, 33 Ala. 636. The count does not state a cause of action, and hence would not support a verdict, but the verdict was general, and there were good counts in the complaint to which it will be referred.
9. There is nothing in either of these rulings that could have injuriously affected the defendant.
11. The eleventh assignment is not insisted upon.
“If the jury are reasonably satisfied from the evidence in this case that M. L. Leith was employed by Robert Lang in a suit in equity between Sallie Cunningham, as complainant, against Mary Mulford and Martha Lang, as executors of the estate of T. J. King, deceased, and others, and if the jury are reasonably satisfied from the evidence that the employment of M. L. Leith, if he was employed, was to represent the defendants in the .chancery case above mentioned, and was not to represent Robert Lang, then you must find for the defendant, Lang, unless there was a written contract or agreement between Leith and Lang that stated the consideration, and was also signed by Lang, or by some one lawfully authorized by him in writing to make or sign the said memorandum or agreement.”
This charge does not assert a correct principle of law as applied to any phase of the evidence in this case. It is true, under the statute of frauds, a promise to answer for the debt, default, or miscarriage of another is void, unless such agreement or some note or memorandum thereof, expressing the consideration, is in writing, and subscribed by the party to be charged, etc. Code 1907, § 4289. But this does not apply to an independent original undertaking. The defendant had a perfect right to make an independent original contract with plaintiff, for the protection of his wife’s interest in pending litigation, and this principle the charge ignores. Besides, the charge is not in the record, as required by Acts of 1915, p. 815, and therefore cannot be considered on appeal.
We find no error in the record, and the judgment is affirmed.
Affirmed.
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