Mills v. Brady
Mills v. Brady
Opinion of the Court
Two actions were brought, one by a plaintiff named Mills, and the other by a plaintiff named Bergman, against a number of persons as defendants. The two actions were consolidated and tried together, and judgment was given in favor of each plaintiff. The defendants appeal. The two actions are identical as to all matters pertinent to our discussion, and we may treat them as a single action.
The complaint alleges that the plaintiff is a judgment creditor of the El Dorado Oil Company, a corporation, and has been unable to collect his judgment on execution, that the defendants respectively were the subscribers, owners, and holders of shares in the company in certain specified amounts, that there had been paid in on the shares of the defendants only fifteen per cent of their par value, and the defendants had agreed with the corporation when they acquired their stock to pay the balance of its par value when legally called on so to do. Upon these facts the complaint asks judgment against each defendant for enough of the amount unpaid upon his stock to satisfy the plaintiff’s judgment against the company.
The answer of the defendants admits the existence of the plaintiff’s judgment, and that the defendants were subscribers, owners, and holders of stock, as alleged in the complaint, but denies that their stock was but partially paid stock or that they had agreed to pay in anything more upon it. It also sets up as a separate defense that their stock was issued in consideration for property transferred to the corporation, which was believed to be of a value equal to the par value of the stock, and that the plaintiff, or rather his assignor, *319 for the plaintiff held his judgment by assignment, had been aware of the fact just mentioned when he became a creditor of the company. It will be noted, however, that this so-called separate defense is but the affirmative averment of facts showing the defendants’ stock to be fully paid stock, so that it is really but a denial in another form of the averment of the complaint that the stock was but partially paid.
Upon the issues so made the parties went to trial and, except for immaterial variances, the court found in substance that the averments of the complaint were true and the denials and averments of the answer were not, and, as we have said, gave judgment for the plaintiff.
The judgment is based on the findings and not on the evidence, and the contention that the judgment is not supported by the evidence is at best nothing else than a contention that the findings are not supported by the evidence.
The reply of the appellants to the point so made against them is that a specification of particulars was not necessary, since a motion for new trial was made and denied, the order denying it, as well as the judgment itself, is under review on the appeal from the judgment, and the motion for a new trial was made upon the minutes of the court, as must now be done, and not upon a bill of exceptions, as might have been done previous to the amendment in 1915 of the code provisions governing proceedings for a new trial.
The respondent makes and insists upon the point that because of the lack of the bill of exceptions in this respect, it is not open to us to examine the merits of the appellants’ contentions, and we can but concede the point. It is determinative of the appeal.
Judgment affirmed.
Shaw, J., Wilbur, J., Sloane, J., Lawlor, J., Lennon, J., and Angellotti, C. J., concurred.
Rehearing denied.
All the Justices concurred.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- GEORGE E. MILLS, Respondent, v. EMILY E. BRADY Et Al., Appellants
- Cited By
- 15 cases
- Status
- Published