Lemmon v. Hanley

Citations

• 28 Tex. 219

Syllabus

<p>A defendant may plead as many pleas as he desires, but each should be complete of itself, or at least the whole answer should, if true, present a valid defense to the plaintiff’s action. (Paschal’s Dig., Art. 1441, Note 548.) .</p> <p>To a suit on a promissory note executed to a payee or bearer and sued on by the bearer, the defendants plead that the plaintiff acquired the note after maturity and without consideration; that it was given by these defendants in lieu of other notes executed by them to the payee, in consideration of negroes sold to them by the payee with warranty of title; that defendants had since sold .the negroes to other persons with warranty of title; that after the purchase of the negroes from the payee by defendants, but before their execution of the note sued on, they learned that the negroes were claimed adversely by certain other parties, of which they notified the payee, who thereupon represented to defendants that he had compromised with said adverse claimants, and that they had engaged to release their claims if he would procure and surrender to them the note of these defendants for the purchase-money of the negroes still unpaid by them; that by these representations the defendants were induced to execute to the payee the note sue.d on; that the said representations were false and fraudulent, and the payee had never procured the releases of the said adverse claimants, but that the said claimants had instituted suits for the negroes against the persons to whom these defendants had sold them with warranty as aforesaid; that the payee and the plaintiff were confederating with said adverse claimants in the prosecution of their suits, and at the same time were fraudulently seeking to recover against defendants on the note now sued on; that one of the notes, in lieu of which the note in suit was given, was not surrendered to the defendants by the payee, but he promised to destroy the same, instead whereof it was in suit against these defendant