[Newspaper]
Publication: The Indianapolis News
Indianapolis, IN, United States
vol. 37, no. 30, p. 5, col. 5
FOR WIDOW AND DAUGHTERS
OF EX-GOVERNOR MATTHEWS
Decision of Supreme Court Overrules
Appellate Court in a Long-
Contested Case.
The Supreme Court to-day held that the widow and daughters of Claude Matthews, former Governor of Indiana, can not be required to pay a surety debt which he contracted in 1892, six years before he died.
Governor Matthews and two other men indorsed a note for $2,400 given by the Pendleton Glass Tube and Pipe-works to J. O. Henderson. The company became insolvent soon afterward, but Henderson did not ask the sureties to pay the note until nearly ten years after it was executed, which was four years after Governor Matthews died and nearly three years after his estate was settled.
A surety who lived in Ohio, Peter S. Clevenger, was then compelled to pay it, and he sued the widow and heirs of Governor Matthews for contribution.
The Circuit Court decided against him, the Appellate Court reversed its Judgment, and then the Supreme Court over-ruled the Appellate Court in that case and several others, and that the lapse of two years after the Matthews estate was settled bars such an action against his heirs.