Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1889 — MAFTERS OF LAW. [ARTICLE]

MAFTERS OF LAW.

Recent Decisions of the Indiana Supreme Court. (1.) Corbin was standing on a public sidewalk in the town of Rochester, near the outer edge of the pavement, facing the northeast: Mercer, coming from the west, rode a bicycle against him, threw him down and sevely injured him. The sidewalk was fourteen feet in width, and there was nothing to obstruct the view or passage of appellant. The appellee’s complaint charges that the appellant assaulted, beat and wounded him. The special verdict states that appellant carelessly, recklessly and rudely ran against and upon the appellee. Held: That A case is made for damage as for an assault and battery. Held, also, that under section 3,361, Revised Statutes, 1881, sidewalks are for the exclusive use of footmen, and it is threfore unlawful under that section to ride a bicycle along a sidewalk. A bicycle is a vehicle within the meaning qf the statutes (2) Where all the evidence is not incorporated in the bill of exceptions, some statement must be made showing that it was excluded because deemed intrinsically incompetent. In many cases where questions arise on instructions or on rulings in admitting or excluding evidence, statements may be embodied in the bill of exceptions which will obviate the necessity of bringing all the evidence into the record.

(1) Where competent evidence appears in the record, which, if true, tends to sustain the verdict and judgment, unless it is of such a character that to believe it would involve an absurd or unreasonable conclusion, no matter, how much the evidence is contradicted, it will support the verdict. (2) A motion for a new trial, assigning as a cause the exclusion of evidence, must point out the particular evidence excluded, so the Court will not have to search the whole record. (1) In a suit in partition the court has no power to require one-tenant in common to pay his co-tenant for the latter’s interest in the land or for improvements made and taxes paid. The property must either be divided or sold. (2) Where a tenant in common in possession makes improvements on the real estate in good faith, a co-tenant, upon a sale of the property in partition proceedings is only entitled to his share of the proceeds, exclusive of the improvements. (1) When it does not appear affirmatively that notice was not issued, but it does appear that jurisdiction was assumed and a final judgment rendered by a court of general jurisdiction, jurisdiction will be presumed. (2) An action to quiet title is barred in fifteen years. (3) The disabilities of infancy and coverture can not be tacked together to avoid the statute of limitations (4) Title may be acquired to land by open, exclusive, adverse possession, under a claim of ownership for twenty years. (5) The provision of section 297, R. 8. 188 V, that the time during which the defendent is a non-resident of the State shall not be computed in any of the periods of limitation, is not available to and does not extend the period of limitation in favor of a plaintiff who has been a non-resident and who has a cause of action against a resident of this State. He can not ask that the time he was a, non-resident shall be deducted. ’ (1)| Under a complaint to quiet title, all defences are admissible "In evidence under the general denial, and hence there is no available error in sustaining a demurrer to a special answer. (2) A married woman is as much bound by a decree of a court of competent jurisdiction as a feme sole. (3) Where the matters specially pleaded in one paragraph of an answer are admissible under another paragraph which remains in, there is no availabe error in sustaining a demurrer to the former. (4) A decree quieting title to land, unless the description can be ascertained from the record, is void.

(1) In a suit for Ramages for malicious prosecution, the plaintiff may introduce in evidfence the pleadings in a civil suit instituted by him against the defendent for an accounting a few days before the criminal proceedings were commenced against the plaintiff, in order to show a motive for the prosecution other than the belief that the plaintiff was guilty of a criminal offense. (2) A letter written to the plaintiff by the defendant before either the civil or criminal proceeding was commenced, telling the latter that the writer had sold certain cattle, and showing that he acted in good faith, is admissible in evidence for the; plaintiff, in an action for malicious prosecution, in charging the plaintiff with the larceny of the cattle and the embezzlement of the proceeds. (3) Where one partner is indebted to his co-partner, the latter has a right to sell partnership property and apply the proceeds to his own use. > (!)> Where a fraudulent device or scheme is resorted to for the purpose of divesting the owner of title and possession, the offense is larceny. The doctrine that there mum be a trespass in order to constitute larceny, is exploded. (2) A defendent cannot obtain a new trial nn the ground of newly discovered

evidence solely by producing a letter exculpating him from the charge and swearing that it was written by a person by whom it purports to be signed.