Brown v. Hiatt

4 F. Cas. 384, 1 Dill. 372

This text of 4 F. Cas. 384 (Brown v. Hiatt) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brown v. Hiatt, 4 F. Cas. 384, 1 Dill. 372 (circtdar 1870).

Opinion

DILLON, Circuit Judge.

The execution of the bond and mortgage in the suit being admitted, the complainant is entitled to a decree of foreclosure, as prayed, unless some of the defences relied upon by the respondents have been established. To these we now turn our attention, and they will be separately considered.

I. As to the alleged agreement to take the collaterals in satisfaction. It is claimed by the respondent, Hiatt, that at the time the loan was made of the complainant, and the bond and mortgage, in suit, were executed, and the Kenyon note was delivered, and the Perkins judgment was assigned to the complainant, that it was verbally agreed (as stated by Hiatt in his testimony on this po;nt) “that, whenever he requested it, the plaintiff was to take the Kenyon note and mortgage and the judgment against Perkins, and release the mortgage from myself to him.” The respondent testifies that in 1802 he wrote to the complainant in Virginia, claiming the benefit of this agreement, and that the complainant, recognizing the agreement, wrote in reply, that he- would accede to his request The existence of such an agreement, the 'complainant positively denies. He also denies receiving from the respondent a letter making such a request, or writing to him a letter agreeing to accept the collaterals in satisfaction of his debt.

The alleged agreement is not satisfactorily proved. On the contrary, it is perfectly clear to our minds, that no such agreement was made. Such an agreement is not consistent with the language of the written assignment of the Kenyon mortgage, which, ini terms, states that it was assigned “as collateral security.” Again, assuming the Kenyon note and the Perkins judgment to be perfectly good, and worth their face, they do-not equal in amount, by several hundred dollars, the sum of money which the complainant actually loaned to the respondent, a circumstance strongly tending to show the intrinsic improbability that any such agreement, as the respondent now alleges, was in fact made.

Again, the letter which he says he received from the complainant, agreeing to take the collaterals in satisfaction of his debt, is not produced, and the writing of any such letter is positively, and on oath, denied by him. The respondent says this letter was mailed in Virginia, and fixes its date and receipt at a time when communication, by mail, between that portion of Virginia and the rest of the United States had entirely ceased. *

Again, the respondent’s conversations with others, as, for example, Judge Crozier, long after this alleged satisfaction of his debt, in which he distinctly admitted that he was indebted to the complainant in the amount of the bond for $2.400, now in suit, is irreconcilable with the theory the respondent now propounds, and which we are at present discussing. Without longer dwelling upon this point, we conclude by expressing it, as the opinion of the court, that this defence is not established.

*2. The Statute of Limitations. By the statute of limitations of the state of Kansas, it is provided that “an action upon a specialty, or any agreement, contract, or promise in writing,” shall be brought “within three-years” from the time the cause of action-accrued. Laws Kan. 1859, c. 3, p. 84, §§ 19, 20. Under the thirty-fourth section of the-judiciary act, this statute of limitations is-applicable to the present suit State statutes of limitation, in the absence of provision otherwise by congress, form the rule of decision in the national courts, which will give to such statutes the same effect that they have, or are entitled to, in the courts of the states. McCluny v. Silliman. 3 Pet. [28 U. S.] 270; U. S. Bank v. Daniels, 12 Pet. [37 U. S.] 32; Porterfield v. Clark, 2 How. [43 U. S.] 125; Hanger v. Abbott, 6 Wall. [73 U. S.] 532, 537.

During the whole period covered by the late Rebellion, as well as before and since, [387]*387the complainant resided in, and was a citizen of, the state of Virginia, and of that portion of the state which was declared, hy the proclamation of the president, to he in insurrection against the government of the United States. The bond in suit became payable May 20, 1861. This suit was brought February 27,1867. The complainant claims that in computing the. time which has run since his debt matured, he is entitled to have deducted therefrom the period occupied by the war, when all communication between the parties was not only impracticable, but unlawful. If the complainant is entitled to this deduction, it is obvious that the present suit was commenced in time. Equally obvious is it that if the time covered by the war is not to be excluded from the computation, the suit is barred by the statute. The complainant, in his testimony, which is the only evidence on the subject, says that he was, during the late conflict, simply a private citizen, and was at home, and held, it is to be inferred from his statement, no office, agency, or place in the Confederate States or service. There is no evidence, one way or the other, as to the sentiments of the complainant with respect to the war, or whether he did or did not aid or abet the Rebellion. The question is, therefore, to be considered simply as one between an inhabitant of an insurrectionary state, and an inhabitant of a state which “maintained a loyal adhesion to the Union and the constitution.”

So far as the court is advised, it is one which, in the form now presented, has never been determined in the supreme court. This circumstance, as well as the gravity and difficulty of the question, will justify, if it does not require, the somewhat extended discussion necessary to present the grounds of the conclusion at which we have arrived.

The leading, and up to this time, the only, decision of the supreme court as to the effect of the late conflict upon state statutes of limitations, is that of Hanger v. Abbott, 6 Wall. [78 U. S.] 532. This judgment holds when a creditor, being a citizen of a loyal state, brings an action on a contract against his debtor, a citizen of and residing in a state which went into the Rebellion, that the period during which the creditor was prevented by the conflict from asserting his rights, is not to be included in the computation of time fixed by statutes of limitation. The case just cited is, as to parties, the reverse of the present one, for here we have a creditor who is a citizen of a state which . was in insurrection, bringing his action against his debtor, a citizen of a loyal state, and claiming the benefit of the same rule of law, to which, in the case referred to, it was adjudged that the loyal creditor was entitled. To the case just mentioned (Hanger v. Abbott), we shall again have occasion to refer, and to discuss the point whether, in principle, it can be discriminated from the case at bar. On assumption that the question in this case may be different from that determined in the case mentioned, we 'proceed to an independent examination of the question as to the effect of the war of the Rebellion upon the complainant’s rights under his contract with the respondents.

Properly to understand the effect of the war upon contract rights, it is necessary to inquire into the nature of the conflict.

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Bluebook (online)
4 F. Cas. 384, 1 Dill. 372, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brown-v-hiatt-circtdar-1870.