There is no error on the plaintiff’s appeal as the limitation on the amount to be expended by the trustee in behalf of the plaintiff refers only to the education of the plaintiff, and as the jury has found, and she practically admits, that the sum of $370.80 was advanced by the defendant at her request and for necessaries, it was proper to charge her with this amount.
The defendant is not chargeable with interest because the jury has found that he received the sum of $1,000 to hold in trust as alleged in the answer, and the answer alleges that the trust was accepted with the understanding that he was not to be charged with interest and was to keep the money in a safe separate and apart from other funds, which he did.
The question presented by the defendant’s appeal depends upon a construction of the answer as it is clear that he was entitled to offer evidence as to all of the terms of the trust and to have an issue submitted thereon if the pleadings raised the issue.
His Honor was of opinion that the terms of the trust were alleged in section 10 of the answer, and as the plaintiff failed therein to allege that the plaintiff was required to execute the deed before receiving any part of the money left with him, the evidence was not competent because there was no allegation and that no such issue was raised by the pleadings, but under the Code system which prevails in this State the answer must be considered as a whole; it must be “liberally construed,” and if it can be seen from its general scope that a defense is alleged, the fact that it has not been stated with technical accuracy or precision will not deprive him of the defense. If in any portion of the pleading it presents facts sufficient to constitute a defense or if facts sufficient for that purpose can be gathered from it, the pleading will stand as every reasonable intendment and presumption must be made in favor of the pleader. *61 Brewer v. Wynne, 154 N. C., 472, and applying this principle we are of opinion that the defendant sufficiently alleges that the plaintiff was required to execute the deed as a condition to receiving the money.
In section 15 of the answer the defendant admits that he has the money in hand “left with him for the feme plaintiff upon her execution of her interest in the deed after she became twenty-one years of age,” and he tenders the balance due which he says he is ready to pay “whenever she executed the deed”; and in section 16 the defendant consents for judgment to be entered against him for the balance due “upon the execution of the deed to the plaintiff.”
It would have been better and more orderly for the defendant to have set out all of the terms of the trust in section 10 of the answer, but upon an inspection of the whole pleading it is a reasonable and fair construction that section 10 was directed particularly to those parts of the trust by which the amount to be recovered would be ascertained, and sections 15 and 16 -to the condition upon which she would be entitled to the money.
It is therefore ordered that the judgment upon the plaintiff’s appeal be affirmed and that upon the defendant’s appeal it be reversed with directions to submit an additional issue as tendered by the defendant. The issues as found by the jury will not be disturbed.
Plaintiff’s appeal affirmed.
Defendant’s appeal reversed.