Gillette v. Bullard/Opinion of the Court

The undertaking sued on was simply security for the judgment, and the plaintiff had no right to maintain an action thereon until the final affirmance of the judgment in the court of last resort. To enable him to maintain this action against the surety, it was necessary that he have a right to enter and collect a judgment of affirmance in the case. This right, as the pleadings show, the plaintiff has never acquired.

It is true that the defendant, in his answer or plea, does not allege in express terms that the cause is still pending in this court. But he avers that which, by reasonable intendment and independent of any enactment, is equivalent thereto, namely, that 'no remittitur or mandate has ever been issued from this court to the Supreme Court of the Territory, or from the Supreme Court of the Territory to the District Court; and that the judgment so rendered in the Supreme Court of the said Territory still remains in that court so stayed by the order thereof, by the giving of the said bond on appeal, and by the said supersedeas.'

But the answer is made more effective by statute. The seventy-eighth section of the Practice Act of Montana enacts that in the construction of a pleading for the purpose of determining its effect its allegations shall be liberally construed. Coustruing this answer or plea liberally, it must be taken to intend not only that the appeal had been taken, but that it had been perfected and was pending when the action was begun.

No opposing counsel.

The CHIEF JUSTICE delivered the opinion of the court.

The seventy-eighth section of the Practice Act of Montana which provides that 'in the construction of a pleading for the purpose of determining its effect, its allegations shall be liberally construed, with a view to substantial justice between the parties'-is a modification of the common-law rule which construes all pleadings most strongly against the pleader, but even with the statute as our guide, we think the judgment below was correct. An answer to be good must overcome the case made by the complaint. If the facts well pleaded in the complaint are admitted, as in this case, it must state other facts, sufficient, if true, to defeat the action in whole or in part, or it will not avail as a defence.

That is not the case here. It is nowhere averred that at the time of the commencement of this action the appeal to this court was pending or that it had ever been perfected. In fact, such averments seem to have been studiously avoided. The appeal was allowed in January, 1869. Unless a transcript was filed in this court before the end of the following term that appeal would be vacated. In the language of very many decisions it would become functus officio. #fn-s-s * *  The supersedeas is but an appurtenance of the appeal. The stay insisted upon in the answer, although there seems to have been an attempt to make it more, is only that which resulted from the supersedeas. That was at an end when the appeal became inoperative. The failure, therefore, to aver that the appeal was in force was a failure to aver that the stay as granted continued to have effect.

The complaint alleges that money was made upon executions in 1870. The date of the issue of the executions is not given, but if the collection was regular the judgment could not have been stayed when the money was made, and that was after the time within which the appeal, if it was to remain in force, must be perfected. Clearly, therefore, to make the defence perfect, it was incumbent upon the defendant to aver distinctly in his answer not only that the appeal had been taken, but that it had been perfected and was still pending when the action was commenced.

It is, however, stated that no mandate or remittitur had been issued from this court to the Supreme Court of the Territory, or from the Supreme Court of the Territory to the District Court when the action was commenced. None could issue from this court, for there was nothing here, so far as the pleadings show, to remand. None was necessary from the Supreme Court of the Territory to the District Court, because the condition of the bond is to pay if the judgment should be affirmed. The affirmance, therefore, is the material fact which is to fix the liability. That is averred in the complaint and not denied in the answer.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED.