Case Name: Wesley Morrison et al. v. Aaron H. Bean
Court: Supreme Court of Texas
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1860-10
Citations: 25 Supp. Tex. 442
Docket Number: 
Parties: Wesley Morrison et al. v. Aaron H. Bean.
Judges: 
Reporter: Texas Reports
Volume: 25 Supp.
Pages: 442–445

Head Matter:
Wesley Morrison et al. v. Aaron H. Bean.
Where a’suit is brought upon a negotiable security, which was assigned before the maker had enjoined the payee from circulating it, it was not error to exclude the injunction suit from the jury.
Where the defendant propounded interrogatories to the plaintiff under the 80th section of the act of 13th April, 1846, to regulate proceedings in the district court, he must comply with the last clause of the act, by giving five days’ notice to his adversary, or else he will not be allowed to take the answers for confessed. (Paschal’s Dig., Arts. 3748, 3740, Notes 852, 853.)
Error from Gonzales. The ease was tried before Hon. Fielding Jones, one of the district judges.
Bean sued Morrison and wife and Wintz, upon a note executed by Morrison to Wintz, for $3,025 50, and indorsed by Wintz to Bean, On the 18th August, 1854. Bean also prayed to foreclose a mortgage executed by Morrison and wife upon certain land and slaves to secure said note.
Morrison sets up in his answer that this note and mort- . gage were given to Wintz in payment of a number of horses, which, unknown to Morrison, were fatally diseased at time of sale, and that Wintz, being in the possession of this note, Morrison obtained an injunction restraining its transfer or collection. The assignment of the note and mortgage to Bean appeared to be dated before the date of the fiat. [The dates are given in the opinion.]
Morrison charged distinctly that Bean had full knowledge of the injunction when he received the note and mortgage, and that the assignment thereof was ante-dated' by and through the fraudulent combination and privity of Wintz and Bean, in order to deprive him of his defense; and that, in reality, Bean received the note and mortgage from Wintz after the said fiat was granted, Bean having full knowledge thereof; thereby putting himself in contempt of the court. .
On the trial, Morrison offered in evidence to the jury, as one of the links of the defense, a transcript of the injunc tion suit from G-uadaloupe District Court; Bean objected, on the ground that the date of the assignment to defendant in error appeared to be before the date of tire fiat. The court sustained the objection, to which defendant excepted.
The suit was commenced on the 25th of February, 1856. On the 29th of April thereafter, Morrison filed interrogatories to the plaintiff, under the 80th section of the act to regulate the proceedings in the district court. (Paschal’s Dig., Art. 3748, ¡Note 852.) But no notice was given five days before the'trial, as was required by said act. The trial was on the 18th of April, 1859. There were a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff, and a decree of foreclosure. A motion for a new trial was overruled. The defendants’ evidence being excluded, the only facts proved were the instruments declared upon. The defendants prosecuted error, and complained of the exclusion of the injunction suit from the jury, and also the refusal to take the bill of discovery against the plaintiff as confessed.
W. Mills, for the- plaintiffs in error.
—The point here is, was it error in excluding the transcript? We think it clearly admissible, as a basis of the further proof, as to the ante-dating and the fraudulent scienter of defendant in error. Suppose.the proof of the ante-dating and the scienter of Bean had been offered, could it have been received until the existence of the injunction and fiat were first established? And how can these be done but by offering the transcript? The ante-dating and fraudulent scienter were some of the prominent points in the defense, and the answers were to meet, and the proof to overturn, this prima facie case, made against Morrison by the date of the assignment, and, further, to fasten upon Bean the scienter charged.
His honor below excluded the transcript, solely because the dates made the prima facie case against us, when, in fact, the stand-points in the defense controverted the face dates, and alleged the true dates; to prove which, the existence of the injunction and fiat was obviously the proper beginning. "(Bailey v. Knight, 8 Tex., 58.)
So, too, if the fact offered is to lay the basis or foundation for other proper evidence, it should be received. (Neill v. Keese, 5 Tex., 33.) If it tend to prove the issue, it'is sufficient. (1 Q-reenl. Ev., § 51 a.)
Parker g Miller, for the defendant in error.
—The injunction against Wintz was sued out 16th October, 1864, about two months after the transfer to Bean.
But if in any event it could have been evidence in this case, it could only be made so by showing that Bean purchased with knowledge of the defenses against the note, and for the purpose of defrauding the defendant.
But Bean states in his testimony, taken by the defendant, that he had no notice of any injunction or of any offsets against the note, and that he purchased it in good faith, and for a valuable consideration.
The interrogatories propounded to Bean in the amended answer could not have been taken for confessed under the law and the pleadings. (0. & W. Dig., Art. 475.)
The defendant had already propounded interrogatories to plaintiff, and could not be allowed to propound similar questions to the same party just before going to trial, and have the cause continued or the interrogatories taken for confessed; at least, not unless he had made affidavit that the answers were material to his just defense.

Opinion:
Bell, J.
—We are of opinion that there is no error in the judgment.
It is contended by the counsel for the plaintiff in error, that the transcript of the proceedings in the injunction suit of Morrison v. Wintz ought to have been admitted in evidence, for the purpose of showing when the injunction was granted, and as the necessary foundation of further proof "by the defendants below. When the transcript of the injunction suit was offered in evidence by the defendants, the plaintiff had closed his testimony, and it was already shown to the court that the note and mortgage sued on were assigned to the plaintiff before the injunction was granted, and that the plaintiff did not know, at the time of the assignment of the note and mortgage to him, that any injunction had been granted at the suit of Morrison against Wintz. The assignment of the note and mortgage purported to have been made on the 18th day of August, 1854, and the assignment of the mortgage appeared to have been acknowledged before an officer on the 1st day of September, 1854. The injunction in the case of Morrison v. Wintz was granted by Judge Devine on the 1st day of ¡November, 1854. Under these circumstances, the granting of the injunction interposed no obstacle to a recovery by the plaintiff, Bean, in this suit. And it was within the discretion of the court to refuse to permit the transcript of the injunction proceedings to be read, until the defendants made proof that the assignment of the note and mortgage by Wintz to Bean was in truth subsequent to the 1st of November, 1854, when the injunction in the case of Morrison v. Wintz was granted. Without such evidence, the injunction could avail nothing, and the court might well refuse to hear the evidence showing the grant of the injunction, until the plaintiff's evidence as to the time when the assignment of the note and mortgage was made to him was rebutted.
It was not error in the court to refuse to allow the interrogatories to the plaintiff, filed on the 11th April, 1859, to be taken for confessed against him, because they were not answered. These interrogatories were filed during the progress of the suit, after the original answer was filed, and it does not appear that the plaintiff had any notice of them. They were filed only a few days before final judgment.
The judgment of the court below is
Affirmed.