Matthews v. Jenkins

Citations

• 80 Va. 463
• 1885 Va. LEXIS 84

Syllabus

<p>1. Practice in Chancery — Demurrer.—It is settled in this state that a demurrer in the form prescribed by the statute, and assigning no grounds, inserted in the answer is sufficient. Code 1873, chapter 167, section 31; Dunn v. Dunn, 26 Gratt. 291. And when the court has adjudicated the principles of the cause in favor of the plaintiff, the presumption is that it overruled the demurrer, though the record does not show what was done with it. Hinchman v. Ballard, 7 W. Va. 171.</p> <p>2. Contracts — Descriptio persones — Case at bar.- — In body of contract, M. is described as “Secretary of the M. E. Association,” but he signs it in his own name without addition, and all the words of promise in the contract are his.</p> <p>Held :</p> <p>It is the personal undertaking of M. and not the contract of the association.</p> <p>3. Idem — Year’s service — Monthly salary. — -A contract to continue for the period of a year, with salary payable monthly, does not make it incumbent on the employee to aver and prove that he performed the entire year’s service, or was prevented from performing it, by the employer, as a condition precedent to the former’s recovering anything. If the whole is to be done on one side, before anything is done on the other, then the promises are dependent. But if something is to be done on the one side, before the whole is to be done on the other, then the promises are independent.</p>