Fred C. Gause

The case involved an Indiana resident who executed a promissory note in Indiana, payable in Illinois, containing a warrant of attorney authorizing any attorney to confess judgment without notice. An Illinois court entered judgment against the maker via this confession procedure, which is valid under Illinois law though not under Indiana law, and the holder then sued in Indiana to enforce the judgment. The Indiana court held that the Illinois judgment must be recognized and enforced in Indiana under the full faith and credit clause of the U.S. Constitution, because the note was payable in Illinois and the parties' chosen law governed the enforceability of the confession provision. The court distinguished the place of execution from the place of performance and affirmed the judgment for the plaintiff.

procedurebusiness & regulatory

The case concerned a dispute over ownership of certain real estate, with the appellant seeking partition based on a claimed undivided one-third interest. After an initial trial court judgment in the appellant's favor, the Appellate Court reversed on the ground that she was estopped from asserting any interest in the property. On retrial, the lower court made special findings of fact and again concluded that the appellant was estopped. The Supreme Court affirmed that judgment, holding that the facts found on retrial were substantially the same as those in the prior appeal and that the law of the case therefore required the same result.

propertyprocedure

The consolidated cases challenged the validity of an Indianapolis "Anti-Picketing" ordinance, with plaintiffs seeking to enjoin its enforcement and others appealing convictions for violations during labor disputes. The court upheld the ordinance as a valid exercise of the city council's authority under its charter to preserve peace and good order, ruling that it properly prohibited picketing involving compulsion, threats, coercion, intimidation, or violence at workplaces or businesses. The decision rejected arguments that the ordinance was unreasonable, exceeded granted powers, or conflicted with state criminal statutes on assault or similar offenses, noting that violations of the ordinance do not necessarily require or duplicate statutory crimes. Judgments enforcing the ordinance were affirmed.

criminal lawlabor & employmentbusiness & regulatory

This case was a dispute between a landlord and tenant over a written lease for a store room in South Bend, Indiana, running from May 1, 1920, to April 29, 1935. The tenant sued for breach after the landlord began installing a new storefront (per the tenant's plans) on May 1 and did not finish until October 25, claiming lost use of the premises, devalued seasonal merchandise, extra storage and drayage costs, and failure to provide heat. A jury awarded the tenant $7,400, but the appellate court reversed and ordered a new trial. The court held that the lease imposed no deadline for the improvements, so the landlord had a reasonable time to complete them; absent evidence that the work was unreasonable, negligent, or excessive, there was no breach regarding possession, and the only potentially recoverable item was $176.94 for the heating failure.

property

In Pritchett v. State, the appellant was tried and convicted of attempted rape based on an affidavit charging assault and battery with intent to commit rape, and he appealed the resulting judgment and sentence after the trial court overruled his motion for a new trial and motion in arrest of judgment. The court affirmed the conviction, holding that the trial court did not err in denying a special venire drawn from the jury box and instead allowing the sheriff to summon extra jurors, as the record showed the regular panel was used and no substantial rights were affected. It further held that there was no abuse of discretion in rulings on a state witness's cross-examination testimony regarding reputation evidence, that the record affirmatively showed a unanimous verdict to which all jurors assented, and that jurisdictional objections based on a prior city court proceeding were unsupported by the record and involved a different charge anyway. The appellant had not exercised his right to poll the jury before discharge, waiving any later challenge to unanimity.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involved a petition to establish a drain in which commissioners filed a report assessing benefits to the appellants' lands. The appellants filed remonstrances against the report on February 18, 1922, more than ten days after the report's February 6 filing, and the trial court struck the remonstrances as untimely under the governing statute. The statute allowed ten days, exclusive of the filing day and Sundays, for owners to file remonstrances, and the appellants argued that Lincoln's Birthday, observed as a holiday on the intervening Monday, should also be excluded. The court held that only the days expressly listed in the statute—the filing day and Sundays—could be excluded from the computation, applying the principle that unspecified holidays are included in the time period. The remonstrances were therefore untimely, and the judgment striking them was affirmed.

propertyprocedure

The case involved the conviction of appellant Cyrus for unlawfully possessing a still intended for the manufacture of intoxicating liquor in violation of state law under a 1921 statute. The trial court overruled motions to quash the indictment and arrest judgment, and the appellate court affirmed the conviction. The court reasoned that the statute, when construed together with its title, prohibits possession of a still only for intoxicating liquor, that the indictment sufficiently followed the statutory language by alleging the purpose was in violation of state laws, and that the prohibition on possession was properly connected to the title's subject of prohibiting manufacture of intoxicating liquor.

criminal law

This case concerns an appeal from an Indiana trial court's order issuing a writ of assistance to enforce a prior affirmed judgment in favor of Fidelity Trust Co. The original judgment held that Fidelity held legal title to certain real estate as trustee under deeds and a trust agreement executed by the Rookers, who retained only a contingent interest in sale proceeds and were enjoined from interfering with Fidelity's possession and rights to rents and profits. After the Rookers refused to vacate the property following the judgment's affirmance, Fidelity petitioned for the writ, which the trial court granted. The Indiana Supreme Court affirmed, reasoning that the prior judgment was final and within the court's jurisdiction over the parties and subject matter, that the writ was a proper equitable remedy to enforce compliance without relitigating settled issues of title or possession, and that evidence showed the Rookers remained in possession and had refused demands to comply.

propertyprocedure

The case involved appellant Oscar Anderson, who was charged by affidavit in three counts with the crime of pandering under Indiana statute for allegedly procuring a female to become an inmate of a house of prostitution he kept, using various means like promises or threats. Anderson moved to quash the affidavit, sought a continuance, and after conviction by jury, filed a motion in arrest of judgment before a motion for a new trial; the trial court overruled all motions and imposed a fine and prison sentence. The court affirmed the judgment, holding that the motions to quash and in arrest were properly denied because the affidavit as a whole was sufficient where each count tracked the statutory language and at least one count was valid, that the continuance ruling could not be challenged by independent assignment of error, and that filing the motion in arrest before the new trial motion waived the right to a new trial. The court noted that challenges to the affidavit's sufficiency were not specifically argued and appeared to lack merit.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involved a dispute over a 1920 contract for the sale of a farm in Wells County, Indiana, for $27,600, which included a $5,000 liquidated damages clause for any breach and required the seller to provide a merchantable title abstract by December 1, 1920. The buyer sued for the full $5,000 before the closing date, alleging only that the seller had failed to timely furnish the abstract, with no claim of actual damages or breach of the deed delivery obligation. The trial court sustained a demurrer to the complaint. The appellate court affirmed, holding that the damages provision applied to a breach of the entire contract rather than individual covenants, and that construing it to cover any minor breach would render it an unenforceable penalty rather than liquidated damages, as some stipulations involved easily ascertainable harms. Judgment was entered for the seller.

propertybusiness & regulatory

This case involved a company seeking to vacate drainage assessments levied against its Gibson County land by the Pike Circuit Court in a multi-county drainage proceeding; the suit was filed in the Gibson Circuit Court against certain petitioners, the contractor, and the county treasurer. The trial court sustained demurrers to the complaint on jurisdictional grounds, and the appellate court affirmed. The core reasoning was that an action to set aside a judgment for lack of notice is properly an action to vacate or modify that judgment, which can only be brought in the court that rendered it; one circuit court lacks authority to vacate the orders of another court of equal rank, as that would create conflicting authority, and the Pike court retained control over its own drainage judgment under the applicable statutes and precedents.

propertyprocedure

This case involved taxpayers in Fremont township and town seeking to enjoin the county treasurer from collecting taxes levied to pay bonds issued by the civil and school townships to fund construction of a joint high school building, after the school town abandoned control and transferred assets and debts to the township under a 1919 statute. The trial court ruled against the taxpayers in both consolidated actions, finding them not entitled to relief. On appeal, the court affirmed, holding that a subsequent curative statute validated any procedural defects in the bond issuance process, as the legislature could have authorized the bonds originally and no prior litigation had bound the township or determined their validity before the curative act took effect.

taxesproperty

This case involved a dispute between Firemen's Insurance and Temple Laundry Co. over the payout due under two $5,000 fire insurance policies covering a building and its contents in Terre Haute, Indiana. The policies contained a coinsurance clause limiting the insurer's liability to the proportion of the $10,000 policy amount relative to 90% of the property's actual cash value ($100,000 total), with a fire causing $70,653.27 in damages amid $65,000 in other insurance. The parties disagreed on whether liability should be calculated on the aggregate property value or item-by-item for the building and contents separately. The trial court sided with the insured and awarded $9,498.44 plus interest, but the appellate court reversed, holding that the blanket policies unambiguously required an aggregate calculation resulting in only $7,850.36 liability.

propertybusiness & regulatory

This case involved the final settlement of the estate of Pearl Hughes, who died intestate without children, leaving a husband and her parents as heirs. The dispute centered on the distribution of her net personal estate of about $292 and real estate valued at $900 at the time of her death, under a statute providing that if the total estate does not exceed $1,000 the surviving spouse takes all, but otherwise the spouse takes three-fourths and the parents one-fourth. The trial court concluded that the parents were entitled to one-fourth of the personal estate balance. On appeal, the court held that the estate's value is determined by its net worth at death, including the real estate's $900 valuation before any later partition sale, for a total exceeding $1,000, so the husband receives three-fourths and the parents one-fourth of the distributable assets. The judgment was affirmed because the statute focuses on the whole net property descending after debts, not post-death sale proceeds.

family lawproperty

The case involved appellants convicted of the misdemeanor of unlawfully transporting intoxicating liquor under chapter 23 of the 1923 Indiana acts. They challenged the sufficiency of the charging affidavit on the ground that the statute had been repealed by implication when the same legislature enacted chapter 34, which made transportation of liquor by motor vehicle a felony. The court held that the two statutes addressed different aspects of the same subject and were not repugnant, so chapter 34 did not repeal chapter 23. Because the acts were auxiliary and in pari materia, they could be construed together without invalidating the misdemeanor offense. The trial court therefore properly overruled the motion to quash, and the convictions were affirmed.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved an appellant charged with operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated under a 1923 Indiana statute that amended a 1913 law on motor vehicles. The appellant moved to quash the affidavit and later moved in arrest of judgment, arguing that the 1923 act violated the Indiana Constitution's requirement that the subject of an act be expressed in its title and that the 1913 act improperly embraced multiple subjects. The trial court overruled both motions, leading to a conviction. The Indiana Supreme Court affirmed, reasoning that prohibiting intoxicated driving falls within the title's coverage of motor vehicle regulation as a matter properly connected to it, and that the act addressed only the single subject of motor vehicles and related matters.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved an appellant convicted under a 1923 Indiana law that banned the transportation of intoxicating liquors by automobile. The appellant raised several questions challenging the conviction. The court determined that these issues had already been resolved against the appellant's position in two prior cases, Asher v. State and Volderauer v. State. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment based on those precedents.

criminal law

The case involved a patient who sued St. Vincent's Hospital for damages after a nurse negligently placed a hot water bottle against his foot during surgery, causing severe burns that required amputation of his leg. The hospital raised a defense that it was a charitable institution operated for the relief of the sick and destitute, with no profit motive, and that it had exercised due care in hiring the nurse. The trial court rejected this defense and entered judgment for the plaintiff, but the Indiana Supreme Court reversed, holding that a charitable hospital is not liable to a patient beneficiary for injuries caused by employee negligence if the hospital used reasonable care in selecting its employees. The court reasoned that this exemption from liability for charities, supported by the weight of authority, applies even to pay patients, as their fees contribute to the charitable mission, though it does not extend to injuries to non-beneficiaries or outsiders.

torts & liabilityhealthcare

The case involved appellant Diamond, who was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder of his wife and sentenced to death. He appealed, claiming error in the trial court's refusal of a requested jury instruction on reasonable doubt when multiple persons had opportunity to commit the crime, and in the admission of evidence including his wife's dying declaration accusing him and his limited response while under arrest. The court affirmed the conviction, reasoning that the given instructions fully covered the reasonable doubt principle and the burden of proof, that the evidence of his silence was admissible as it occurred under circumstances calling for a reply, and that other challenged evidence was either competent or immaterial with no reversible error shown.

criminal lawprocedure

In this case, the administrator of a decedent's estate petitioned to sell real estate to pay debts, including five judgments totaling about $15,000 rendered against the decedent during his lifetime. The decedent's children, as appellants, filed an answer and cross-complaint alleging that the judgments were void due to fraud, duress, forgery of the underlying notes, and collusion involving the guardian, and they sought to set aside the judgments and limit any sale to other debts. The trial court struck portions of the answer attacking the judgments, dismissed the cross-complaint as to certain parties, struck related interrogatories, and ruled in favor of the administrator after finding the judgments valid and ordering the sale. On appeal, the court affirmed, holding that there was no error in the procedural rulings and that conflicting evidence supported the trial court's finding that a good-faith defense had been made to the underlying actions.

propertyprocedure