Case ID: ill-app_176/html/0143-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Presiding Justice Smith", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

D. E. Lucas, Defendant in Error, v. Frank Lincoln Johnson, Plaintiff in Error.
    Gen. No. 16,777.
    
      Set-off—demands must be mutual between all the parties. In an action on a joint liability of a husband and wife, the husband cannot set off a debt due himself though the wife is not served with process, since the wife can be brought in by scire facias and made a party to the judgment.
    Error to the Municipal Court of Chicago; the Hon. Askold Heap, Judge, presiding. Heard in this court at the October term, 1910.
    Affirmed.
    Opinion filed December 30, 1912.
    Julius A. Johnson, for plaintiff in error.
    Charles Daniels and Sumner Palmer, for defendant in error.
   Mr. Presiding Justice Smith

delivered the opinion of the court.

The plaintiff, here the defendant in error, began a suit against the defendant, here the plaintiff in error, and his wife, for services rendered in attendance as a physician upon the defendant and his family. Mrs. Johnson was not served and the cause proceeded to trial against the defendant, Mr. J ohnson, who admitted the cause of action and an indebtedness of sixty-eight dollars, for which the court entered judgment. The defendant offered to prove a set-off against the plaintiff for services rendered by him to the plaintiff in a real estate transaction. On objection this evidence was excluded and this the defendant contends was error. The suit was brought jointly against the defendants, and on the record here presented Mrs. Johnson could be brought in on a scire facias and be made a party to the judgment. The plaintiff bringing a joint action and establishing a joint liability, the court properly sustained the objection to the evidence offered tending to establish a right of action on the set-off in behalf of Mrs. Johnson only against the plaintiff. “Demands, to be the subject-matter of set-off, must be mutual between all the parties to the action.” Priest v. Dodsworth, 235 Ill. 613, and authorities there cited.

It is not necessary to discuss the other errors assigned and argued, for the cause here presented is determined on the ground indicated.

The judgment is affirmed.

Affirmed.