Case Name: The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company of the City of New York, Respondent, v. Sarah J. Meeker, Impleaded, etc., Appellant
Court: New York Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1881-04-19
Citations: 85 N.Y. 614
Docket Number: 
Parties: The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company of the City of New York, Respondent, v. Sarah J. Meeker, Impleaded, etc., Appellant.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Reports
Volume: 85
Pages: 614–616

Head Matter:
The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company of the City of New York, Respondent, v. Sarah J. Meeker, Impleaded, etc., Appellant.
The fact that a woman is induced to act, by representations that such, action is all that will save her son from states prison, or by threats on his part to commit suicide, does not,- in a legal sense, constitute duress:
It is not essential that a plaintiff shall set up in his complaint, or by way of reply, facts in rebuttal or avoidance of an affirmative defense, not a counter-claim, set up in the answer. All that is requisite is that the complaint state facts sufficient to make out a cause of action; and if the answer sets up facts which if true would destroy that cause of action, plaintiff may meet them by proof in rebuttal or avoidance.
(Argued March 18, 1881;
decided April 19, 1881.)
This was an action to foreclose a mortgage of $5,000 upon lands owned by defendant Sarah J. Meeker. The defense was that the mortgage was paid and satisfied.
It appeared that Mrs. Meeker gave to her son the money wherewith to pay the mortgage. He did in fact pay it, received a satisfaction-piece thereof, which, with the mortgage, he delivered to his mother. The satisfaction-piece was not filed, and the son subsequently procured a certified copy of the mortgage, and by fraud induced the mortgagee to execute an assignment thereof to one Hodge, and an affidavit ox its genuineness, Hodge sold and assigned the same to one Knapp for $4,500, the latter purchasing, without knowledge, upon the strength of said affidavit, and a forged affidavit purporting to have been made by Mrs. Meeker to the effect that the mortgage was a subsisting lien. The son of the latter received the • purchase-money. After the assignment to Knapp, Mrs. Meeker learned of the fraud so perpetrated! She, thereafter, received from her son the greater portion of the money he had obtained by the transaction, knowing that it was so obtained, and consented that he retain for his own use the residue. She also executed an instrument under seal by which she consented to the extension of the time of payment of the mortgage, and paid the interest thereon, knowing that it was received as interest on the mortgage as a subsisting security. Plaintiff purchased for a valuable consideration and took an assignment of the mortgage from Knapp on the faith of the papers, including the written instrument so executed by Mrs. Meeker, and without knowledge or suspicion of the fraud. Held, that Mrs. Meeker was estopped from alleging payment.
It was claimed by appellant that the transaction with Knapp was usurious. The court held, that as there was no finding or request to find upon which to base the objection, and as the transaction, as it appeared to Knapp, was simply the valid purchase of a chose in action with no intent to violate the usury law, the objection would not be considered here.
It was also claimed that Mrs. Meeker «acted under duress; this was based upon the facts that her action was induced by representations that it was all that would save her son from State prison, and also by threats on his part to commit suicide. Held, that this was not, in any legal sense, duress.
It was claimed that the bond which accompanied the certified copy of the mortgage was not the original one, but was forged; also, that the court erred in receiving it in evidence without proof of its due execution. Held untenable, as the genuineness of the bond was immaterial. The court say: “ It was enough in this case to show a paper in the likeness of a bond, and to prove that it was apart of the subject-matter to which the acts of the appellant had relation. It was the form of a security, which was nothing real, that the assignor of the plaintiff had, and it was to that that the conduct of the plaintiff applied, and it was that that she was estopped from denying was valid and subsisting.”
It was also objected that the complaint did not set up the facts so claimed to be established, upon which the estoppel was based, and0that, therefore, the judgment was based upon findings of fact not alleged in the complaint; also, that there was no amendment on the trial. Held untenable; that all that was required in the complaint was the allegation of facts, which, if undisputed, would make out a cause of action, and when the answer set up facts which if true would destroy that cause of action, plaintiff was not bound to reply, but could meet them on the trial by proof in rebuttal or avoidance.
H. C. M. Ingraham for appellant.
Wm. H. Arnoux for respondent.

Opinion:
Folger, Ch. J.,
read for affirmance.
All concur.
Judgment affirmed.