Hooker v. Forrester

Citations

• 53 Fla. 392

Syllabus

<p>1. All debts ana demands mutually existing between the parties-at the commencement of the action are proper subjects of set-off, but independent demands, in no way connected with the transaction which forms the basis and constitutes the cause of action of plaintiffs and not mutually existing between the parties to the action at the time of the commencement thereof, can not be set oft in the action, under the provisions of Section 1069 of the Revised Statutes of 1892, Section 1461 of the General Statutes of 1906.</p> <p>2. There is a difference in the functions performed by a motion to strike out and a demurrer and one can not be used interchangeably for the other. The distinction between them should be observed.</p> <p>3. Where a demurrer is interposed to pleas, when a motion to strike out would have been the proper method of attack, but no such point is made either below or in the appellate court and the pleas in question are so , faulty that the court would have been justified in striking them out of its own motion, the sustaining of the demurrer will be considered harmless error.</p> <p>4. A demurrer to a plea goes to the whole of it and should be sustained or overruled as an entirety.</p> <p>5. There must be a limit to pleading and, after several successsive sets of pleas have been held bad on demurrer and the defendant files still other pleas in which he reiterates and repeats substantially the same defenses that have already been adjudged bad, a judgment is properly entered by the court upon the'demurrer thereto.</p> <p>6. It is improper to reiterate and repeat defenses which have already been adjudged against the defendants, and a course of this kind should be checked by the circuit judge by refusing to receive such pleas or to allow them to be filed, and if they are filed without the leave of the court it is proper to strike them from the files.</p> <p>7. Every presumption is in favor of the correctness of the judgment entered in the trial court, and wher