Case ID: ill-app_198/html/0029-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Presiding Justice McSurely", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Wesley Shimeall, Appellee, v. Ernst E. Lehmann, Appellant.
    Gen. No. 21,887.
    (Not to he reported in full.)
    Appeal from the Municipal Court of Chicago; the Hon. Charles A. Williams, Judge, presiding. Heard in this court at the October term, 1915.
    Reversed and remanded.
    Opinion filed February 14, 1916.
    
      Statement of the Case.
    Case of the first class in the Municipal Court, for goods sold and money loaned by Wesley Shimeall, plaintiff, against Ernst E. Lehmann, defendant. Defendant filed an affidavit of defense as follows:
    “Defendant believes that he has a good defense upon the merits to the whole of the plaintiff’s demand, as follows: The whole sum, exclusive of interest, sued for, including item for diamond ring and money loaned, •was, on or about July 26, 1913, paid by defendant and thereafter received by plaintiff; as to item of interest, sued for, on ground of alleged vexatious delay in payment, the.nature of the defense thereto is, that said payment included interest up to the time thereof, and, in addition, there was, and has been, no vexatious delay in payment. ’ ’
    Upon motion of plaintiff the court struck the affidavit from the files and entered judgment against defendant.
    Plaintiff contended that the affidavit was insufficient under the rules of the Municipal Court. Defendant argued that it was sufficient. The rules of the Municipal Court, which were preserved for review, provide that defendant shall file an affidavit that he believes he has a good defense upon the merits, “specifying the nature of such defense, whether by way of denial or by way of confession and avoidance in such a manner as to reasonably inform the plaintiff of the defense which will be interposed at the trial.” By rule 20 it is provided that it shall not be sufficient for defendant’s affidavit “to deny generally the facts alleged by the statement of claim * * *. Any denial of any allegation of fact made by the opposite party must not be evasive but must answer the point of substance.”
    Francis W. Walker and Charles E. Selleck, for appellant.
    Jonas O. Hoover, for appellee,
    
      Abstract of the Decision.
    1. Municipal Court of Chicago, § 13
      
      —when affidavit of defense sufficient. In an action of the first class in the Municipal Court of Chicago for goods sold and money loaned, the affidavit of defense examined and held sufficiently to comply with the rules of the Municipal Court.
    2. Municipal Court of Chicago, § 13
      
      —when rules do not require that evidentiary facts he pleaded. The rules of the Municipal Court of Chicago do not require that evidentiary facts be pleaded in the affidavit of defense.
    3. Payment, § 24
      
      —when plea sufficient. In an action for goods sold and money loaned, a plea that before action defendant satisfied and discharged plaintiff’s claim by payment is a good plea.
    
      
      See Illinois Notes Digest, Vols. XI to XV, and Cumulative Quarterly, same topic and section number.
    
   Mr. Presiding Justice McSurely

delivered the opinion of the court.