Court Opinion

ID: 9683609
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:33:01.923059+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:49.045295
License: Public Domain

Snell, 3.-
— I respectfully dissent from the holding of the majority in two important particulars.
I. I agree that the income tax reports of defendants were admissible to show payment of interest. I also agree with the *785statement that “payment of interest does not in itself amount to an admission under section 614.11.” Unless we ignore this statement and the authorities in support thereof the evidence appears insufficient to toll the statute of limitations. The only “extrinsic evidence” relied on by plaintiffs and accepted by the majority opinion is the testimony of plaintiffs that they had received and destroyed letters and the testimony of Mrs. Schroedl that there was no other indebtedness between the parties.
The majority admits that payment of interest is not an admission under the statute. Partial payments are not sufficient. Hootman v. Beatty, 228 Iowa 591, 594, 293 N.W. 32, and eases cited therein. Horn v. Anderson, 234 Iowa 1068, 1071, 13 N.W.2d 693. Partial payments endorsed on a note and signed by the maker are not sufficient. Such a writing has been held to be neither an admission nor a new promise. Hale v. Wilson, 70 Iowa 311, 30 N.W. 739.
A note given for interest is not a written admission or acknowledgment of the original debt. Kleis v. McGrath, 127 Iowa 459, 103 N.W. 371, 69 L. R. A. 260, 109 Am. St. Rep. 396. Later cases hold that the admission in writing need not be made to the creditor but may be made to a stranger. The cases do not hold that a showing to the Internal Revenue Service of interest paid is anymore of an admission than an actual showing of interest paid to the creditor.
“ ‘By our statute the rights of the parties are fixed by the writing, and unless, by its terms, a further sum is admitted to be due, or a new promise -is made, the operation of the statute [of limitations] is not arrested.’ ” Kleis v. McGrath, supra, loc. cit. 466, quoting from Hale v. Wilson, supra.
That this problem is one in which there is judicial dissonance is indicated by the majority opinion, special concurrence and dissent in Horn v. Anderson, supra. I do not think we should ignore the authorities cited.
The case before us is, in my opinion, weaker than any relied on by the majority and a departure from long-standing authorities that have never been overruled.
II. Division II of the majority opinion is almost a repeal of the statute.
*786Section 614.11 quoted by the majority provides that causes of action founded on contract “are revived by an admission in writing, signed by the party to be charged * *
Only one letter from defendants was produced. It said nothing about the debt sued upon.
Plaintiffs testified that over the years they had received some twenty letters from defendant Leo V. McTague in which he acknowledged the debt. Except for the testimony of plaintiffs there is not a scintilla of evidence that there ever were any such letters or as to the contents.
This is not the ordinary case where proof of the contents of a lost instrument may be by secondary evidence. Testimony of plaintiffs, otherwise unsupported, that they received and then destroyed admissions of indebtedness does not in my opinion meet the requirements of the statute that the admission be in writing. To so hold destroys the protection of the statute. It opens the door to the very thing barred by the statute, i.e. recovery on an outlawed claim on the unsupported oral testimony of the plaintiffs that there had been in the past a written admission.
It is true that secondary evidence ordinarily opens the door to fraud but the invitation to fraud is ordinarily not as enthusiastic as here. There is some protection against fraud where proof of the prior existence and contents of destroyed instruments is from a source other than plaintiffs’ oral testimony. Here there is none.
The Iowa cases cited by the majority do not support the extreme position reached in the opinion.
Watson v. Richardson, 110 Iowa 673, 80 N.W. 407, was a paternity case where testimony of outside witnesses was received. The case did not depend on testimony of plaintiff. The testimony of the disinterested witnesses was received but found insufficient. Here we have nothing but plaintiffs’ testimony.
Craig v. Welch, cited and quoted by the majority, states the rule but factually and in the result does not help the plaintiffs here.
In Barton v. Boland cited by the majority the execution *787and delivery of the lost instrument was admitted. “The writing executed was an admission of the indebtedness owing by the appellants.” We have no such situation here.
III. As noted by the majority the record is difficult to follow. There are errors and uncertainties but for the reasons stated I would affirm.