Moody v. Benge & Jewell
Moody v. Benge & Jewell
Opinion of the Court
—This is a judgment by default, rendered in the District Court of Tarrant county against the plaintiff in error.
The case is submitted by the defendant in error upon a suggestion of delay.
Upon inspection of the record, we find an error patent upon the face of the petition for which the judgment must be reversed. Waiving the question as to whether the allegations of the petition, taken together, are tantamount to an averment of the execution of the note sued on by Moody, the plaintiff in error, of which we think there may be some doubt, there is no averment of a delivery of the note to the defendants in error, nor that they are the owners and holders of the note.
The petition alleges that Moody “gave” his promissory note, but to whom he gave it is not alleged. It is .true, we may infer from the statements of the petition that he gave it to Benge & Jewell, and that they are the owners of it, but in doing so we would be dispensing with a well-established rule of pleading, which requires that the facts constituting the right of a party to recover, and fixing the liability of his adversary, shall be averred directly and distinctly in his pleading, and not left to be supplied by inference.
An averment that the note was delivered to the plaintiff, or to some other person through whom he claims, is as necessary to entitle the plaintiff to recover as is the averment of its execution by the maker, otherwise there is no 'privity of contract established between the parties, no liability fixed on the maker, and no right shown in the plaintiff. (Jennings v. Moss, 4 Tex., 452.)
The cases of Lipscomb v. Bryan and Malone v. Craig, 22 Tex., 610, are precisely in point and decisive of this.
And such is our opinion in this case. The judgment will be reversed and the cause remanded, to afford the plaintiffs in the court below an opportunity to amend their petition.
Reversed and remanded.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Thomas O. Moody v. Benge &. Jewell
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- The facts constituting the plaintiff’s right to recover, and fixing the liability of the defendant to the plaintiff, must be averred directly and distinctly, and it is not sufficient that they may be supplied by inference from the allegations of the petition. (Paschal’s Dig., Art. 1427, Note 537.) In a petition on a promissory note, an averment that the note was delivered to the plaintiff, or to some other person through whom he claims, is as necessary, to entitle the plaintiff to recover, as is the averment of the execution of the note by the defendant. Without an averment of such delivery no privity of contract is established between the parties, no liability is fixed on the maker of the note, and no right of recovery is shown in the plaintiff. See the facts of this case for a petition on a promissory note held to be fatally defective in not sufficiently averring a delivery of the note to the plaintiffs. Whether the petition sufficiently avers the execution of the note by the defendant is also questioned, but not decided. In this case judgment was rendered by default in the court below, and the error for which the judgment is reversed is not reached by the assignment of errors; but the error being patent on the face-of the petition, and going to the foundation of the action, this court takes cognizance of it upon the submission of the case by the defendant in error on suggestion of delay. (Paschal’s Dig., Art. 1581, Note 613.)