Court Opinion

ID: 9730797
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:24:08.747736+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:09.397257
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion
White, J.
The evidence most favorable to appellee as correctly summarized in the opinion by Presiding Justice *520Hoffman is sufficient to prove that plaintiff-appellee was libeled and thereby damaged to such an extent that the sum awarded to him is not excessive. Therefore, I am happy to concur.
My only purpose in writing this opinion is to make it clear that even if the complaint had not made “the proper aver-ments, inducement, colloquium and innuendo”, we would not have reversed for error in overruling the demurrer to the complaint.
Burns Ind. Stat. Ann. (1968 Repl.) § 2-1013 provides, inter alia, that “no objection taken by demurrer and overruled, shall be sufficient to reverse the judgment, if it appears from the whole record that the merits of the cause have been fairly determined.” §2-3231 provides, in part, that “[n]o judgment shall be . . . reversed . . . for any defect . . . contained in the . . . pleadings . . . which by law might be amended by the court below, but such defects shall be deemed amended in the Supreme Court . . ,”1 § 2-1068 contains this language: “After trial and before final judgment, the court may, in its discretion and upon such terms as may be deemed proper for the furtherance of justice, order that any pleading be amended by . . . inserting, striking out, or modifying any material allegation in order that the pleadings may conform to the facts proved, where the amendment will not deprive a party of any substantial right.”2
*521These statutes were generally ignored by the Supreme and Appellate Courts prior to about 1912 in appeals in which the overruling of a demurrer to a complaint was assigned as error.3 It is now the law, however, that a judgment will not be reversed merely because a proper demurrer to an insufficient complaint was overruled. In Lane v. Gugsell (1943), 113 Ind. App. 676, 682, 47 N. E. 2d 835, we said:
“We are asked to reverse because of alleged error in overruling the demurrer to the separate paragraphs of the complaint, but we do not find it necessary to decide the correctness of that ruling. We are not required to make our examination of the record in such a case as this so searchingly technical, if fairly sustainable, as to overthrow a just judgment against an officer of the court who has become enmeshed in a net of his own weaving. Clark v. Millsap (1926), 197 Cal. 765, 242 P. 918. Our statute (§2-3231, Burns’ 1933) provides that no judgment shall be stayed or reversed, in whole or in part, where it shall appear to the court that the merits of the cause have been fairly tried and determined in the court below.
“When, on appeal, it affirmatively appears from the whole record, as it appears here, that a ruling on a demurrer, though erroneous, did not prejudice the adverse party, and that the case was fairly tried and determined on its merits, it is our duty to affirm regardless of such error. Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad Company v. Rushton (1929), 90 Ind. App. 227, 148 N. E. 337, 149 N. E. 652.”
Seventeen days after denying transfer in Lane v. Gugsell, supra, the Indiana Supreme Court handed down its own opinion in a similar case. In Bedwell v. Debolt (1943), 221 Ind. 600, 50 N. E. 2d 875, the court did not waste either time or effort in first deciding whether error was committed by the trial court in overruling the demurrer. It merely said:
“Before we v/ould be justified in reversing the judgment for error in overruling the demurrer, we would have to *522determine from the whole record that the appellant was prejudiced thereby. § 2-3231, Burns’ 1933, § 505, Baldwin’s 1934. There is evidence in the record, which was admitted without objection, to the effect that the appellant was warned of the danger which confronted him by the other occupants of the automobile in time sufficient to have avoided the accident, but that he made no effort to stop the automobile or reduce its speed. These facts must be considered with those alleged in the amended complaint in determining whether the appellant was harmed by the ruling on his demurrer. Pittsburgh, etc., R. Co. v. Rushton (1929), 90 Ind. App. 227, 148 N. E. 337, 149 N. E. 652. Fidelity & Cas. Co. of N. Y. v. State ex rel. McWhir (1942), 110 Ind. App. 507, 32 N. E. (2d) 102. The complaint might have been amended after trial to conform to the proof.” (221 Ind. at 604.)
While the approach and the language differs from case to case, the net effect of all the decisions in point since 1911 is that after a trial and decision or verdict for plaintiff the overruling of defendant’s demurrer to the complaint is moot. Which is not to say that questions of law raised by the demurrer for want of facts may not survive the trial and be presented on appeal.4 In the case at bar the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the court’s decision is questioned by the motion for new trial. To the extent that the evidence is insufficient to prove ultimate facts claimed in the demurrer to be material facts, the objections taken by demurrer survive as questions of law. Neither the overruling of a good demurrer nor a failure to demur will authorize a recovery by a plaintiff on proof of less than all the facts material to his cause of action.5 The one and only crucial question in this *523appeal is whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain the plaintiff’s burden of proof. Discussion of- the sufficiency of the allegations of the complaint is helpful only insofar as it aids in determining what that burden is.
Note. — Reported in 257 N. E. 2d 323.

. The new rules have adopted this statute verbatim except to replace “Supreme Court” with “court on appeal.” AP 15 (D).

. Other amendment statutes are:
“2-1063 [418]. Variance, when immaterial — Procedure when party misled. — No variance, between the allegations in a pleading and the proof, is to be deemed material, unless it have actually mislead the adverse party to his prejudice in maintaining his action or defense upon the merits. Whenever it is alleged that a party has been so misled, that fact must be proved to the satisfaction of the court, and it must be shown in what respect he has been misled, and, thereupon, the court may order the pleading to be amended on such terms as may be just.” [Acts 1881 (Spec. Sess.), ch. 38, § 130, p. 240.]
“2-1064 [419.] Variance immaterial- — Action of court. — Where the variance is not material, as provided in the last section, the court may direct the fact to be found according to the evidence, or may order an immediate amendment without costs.” [Acts 1881 (Spec. Sess.), ch. 38, § 131, p. 240.]

. Amendments made in 1911 to the statutes which are now Burns (1967 Repl.) §§ 2-1007 and 2-1011 may be partially responsible for the change in judicial attitude. See Prudential Ins. Co. v. Ritchey (1918), 188 Ind. 157, 162, 119 N. E. 484, for an instructive discourse on the effect of demurring or of failing to demur to a complaint.

. It is also possible that a defendant who relies on the allegations of the complaint (to which he has unsuccessfully demurred) to limit the admissibility of evidence may be surprised and unprepared to refute evidence admitted over his objection. If he is then denied a continuance it may be said “that the merits of the cause have [not} been fairly tried” and that the defendant has been “deprived of his substantial rights” by a plaintiff’s verdict which can be affirmed only by considering the complaint amended to conform to that evidence.

. Prudential Ins. Co. v. Ritchey (1918), 188 Ind. 157, 162, 119 N. E. 484, cited supra in note 3.