Barstow v. W. A. Thatcher

Superior Court of Delaware

Barstow v. W. A. Thatcher

8 Del. 32

DecidedJuly 5, 1864

StatusPublished

This text of 8 Del. 32 (Barstow v. W. A. Thatcher) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Delaware primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

Barstow v. W. A. Thatcher, 8 Del. 32 (Del. Ct. App. 1864).

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Opinion

Patterson.

There was no proof whatever of such an agreement or understanding between the parties. On the contrary, the testimony of the agent through whom the account was made on behalf of the defendants, clearly negatived such an inference, for he had as much as said that according to his understanding of the matter, it was to be on a credit of six months, which was certainly a very liberal, as well as the usual credit allowed by the plaintiff, on the sale of such articles. But the amount now demanded by him, was not for interest on the principal of the account first tendered by him to the defendants, as represented by the counsel on the other side, but it was the discount or rebatement allowed in that account in the expectation, and in consideration of its being paid on the expiration of the usual credit of six months, or by the close of December 1861, with interest on the account exclusive of those reductions, after six months from the making of it at seven per cent., the rate established in UewYork.

The Court, Gilpin C. J.,

charged the jury, that if it was *35 the practice or usage of the plaintiff in Ms business, without any special or express agreement, to sell such articles at six months credit, and they were sold to the defendants without any agreement or understanding between them and the plaintiff that they were to- be allowed a longer or an indefinite credit, or until they should be paid by the Government for building the gunboat referred to, the plaintiff would be entitled to recover interest on the account from the time when such six months credit expired, for what was understood among merchants generally as rebatement or discount on mercantile accounts in such cases, was nothing more than certain deductions in price usually allowed by a merchant to his customer or one who is in the practice of dealing with him. As to the rate of the interest, if the contract was made in Hey: York, it should be seven, but if in this State, it should be six per cent. only.

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Patterson.

There was no proof whatever of such an agreement or understanding between the parties. On the contrary, the testimony of the agent through whom the account was made on behalf of the defendants, clearly negatived such an inference, for he had as much as said that according to his understanding of the matter, it was to be on a credit of six months, which was certainly a very liberal, as well as the usual credit allowed by the plaintiff, on the sale of such articles. But the amount now demanded by him, was not for interest on the principal of the account first tendered by him to the defendants, as represented by the counsel on the other side, but it was the discount or rebatement allowed in that account in the expectation, and in consideration of its being paid on the expiration of the usual credit of six months, or by the close of December 1861, with interest on the account exclusive of those reductions, after six months from the making of it at seven per cent., the rate established in UewYork.

The Court, Gilpin C. J.,

charged the jury, that if it was *35 the practice or usage of the plaintiff in Ms business, without any special or express agreement, to sell such articles at six months credit, and they were sold to the defendants without any agreement or understanding between them and the plaintiff that they were to- be allowed a longer or an indefinite credit, or until they should be paid by the Government for building the gunboat referred to, the plaintiff would be entitled to recover interest on the account from the time when such six months credit expired, for what was understood among merchants generally as rebatement or discount on mercantile accounts in such cases, was nothing more than certain deductions in price usually allowed by a merchant to his customer or one who is in the practice of dealing with him. As to the rate of the interest, if the contract was made in Hey: York, it should be seven, but if in this State, it should be six per cent. only.

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Bluebook (online)

8 Del. 32, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/barstow-v-w-a-thatcher-delsuperct-1864.