Saunders v. Whitcomb

59 N.E. 192, 177 Mass. 457, 1901 Mass. LEXIS 673
CourtMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
DecidedJanuary 4, 1901
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 59 N.E. 192 (Saunders v. Whitcomb) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Saunders v. Whitcomb, 59 N.E. 192, 177 Mass. 457, 1901 Mass. LEXIS 673 (Mass. 1901).

Opinion

Barker, J.

The defendant, a resident of Massachusetts, while in London, England, on August 1, 1894, accepted with one Cushman the bill of exchange for eighty-five pounds declared on in the third count of the declaration. The bill was drawn by Williams and Straban, printers, of London, for the amount of an account due them for printing, and was payable to their order two months after date, and directed to Messrs. Whitcomb and Cushman, Victoria Hotel, Northumberland Avenue. The acceptance was in these words: “ Accepted Payable at Brown Shipley & Co. Founders Ct. City, E. C. H. E. Whit-comb. S. Gr. Cushman.”

The questions raised by the bill of exceptions are as to the consideration for the defendant’s acceptance, and as to the effect of a payment of $206.12 madó on the bill on November 9,1894, at Worcester, to the First National Bank of Worcester, which bank then had possession of the bill for collection, having received the same for that purpose from Brown Brothers and Company of New York, who had received the bill for collection from their London house of Brown, Shipley and Company. The payment of November 9, 1894, the defendant contended was not made by him or from his funds, but by his father, and upon an agreement made by the bank with the knowledge and assent of Brown Brothers and Company that the payment should be in full of all liability of the defendant upon the bill of exchange. There was evidence tending to show that the payment was made by the father from his own funds, and it was not disputed that at the time of the payment, which amounted to one half of the face of the bill without interest, the bank did agree that the payment should be in full of the defendant’s liability. There was also evidence tending to show that the drawers of the bill were its real owners, that Brown, Shipley and Company, Brown Brothers and Company and the bank were merely agents for the collection of the bill for the drawers, and that the latter had neither authorized nor ratified the agreement made by the bank. Before the suit was brought the bill had been transferred [462]*462to the plaintiff to enable him to sue the same for the benefit of the drawers, and all defences existing between them and the defendant were open to him.

The defendant contends that because the promise of the acceptance was to pay eighty-five pounds, an agreement to receive a certain number of dollars in full payment, followed by payment of the sum agreed, would bar the action. He also contends that because the bill was accepted payable in London the payment of a less sum at Worcester, upon agreement that such payment should absolve the defendant from all liability, would bar the action. Also that payment by his father from the father’s own funds of a less sum than that due upon the bill, upon agreement that the payment should be in full of the defendant’s liability, would be a bar.

He does not now contend that his first three requests for rulings, founded upon these contentions should have been given in terms, but that they were sufficient to call attention to and require the court to charge upon the principles on which the requests were founded.

There having been no dispute at the trial that the bank and Brown Brothers and Company were merely agents for collection, neither of the three requests could have been given as presented to the court, for the reason that each was drawn upon the theory that the action of the agent in accepting less than the amount due was of itself conclusive upon the owners of the bill, without regard either to the authority of the agent or ratification by the principal.

The defendant makes no such contention here. The court below was correct in holding that the action of the collection agents in receiving less than the full amount of the debt in satisfaction of the whole would not be a bar to this suit, unless made either by the original authority of the owners of the draft or subsequently ratified by them.

The part payment seems to have been in fact made by a transfer of dollars and cents from one bank account to another, no money having been passed from hand to hand. But neither the fact that the payment was reckoned in dollars at the rate of eighty-eight and a half cents to the pound sterling, nor that it was made at Worcester would furnish a legal consideration for [463]*463an agreement that the payment should discharge the whole debt. The bill called for money and the payment was effected by the transfer of something which the parties mutually considered to represent money, and also to be one half of the money for which the bill called. Assuming that the owner of the draft was entitled to be paid a certain amount of sterling money, his acceptance of its equivalent in dollars rather than in sterling money was not an advantage to himself nor was the payment of the equivalent in dollars rather than in sterling a detriment to the defendant. The acceptance made the bill payable at London; but when it was dishonored the defendant became bound to pay the bill wherever he might be, upon due presentation to him of the bill for that purpose, and it was neither an advantage to the owner of the bill nor a detriment to the defendant to have payment made in Worcester where the defendant resided, he not showing that he had made any arrangements, or been put to any expense to place funds for its payment in London. The statement in Pinnel’s case, 5 Co. 117, gives the reason why the payment upon request of five pounds at York will be satisfaction of ten pounds due at Westminster that “ the expenses to pay it at York, is sufficient satisfaction.” So in Jones v. Perkins, 29 Miss. 139, the defendants, residents of Jackson, Mississippi, owing the plaintiffs who were of New York a note payable at Jackson, not being obliged to go out of Mississippi to make payment, and upon the plaintiff’s agreement to receive less than the whole amount of the note in satisfaction if paid in New York having been at the expense of sending an agent to New York with funds to make the payment, it was held a good satisfaction because of the expense incurred in sending the agent with funds to New York. A good general statement of the rule is found in 1 Am. & Eng. Encyc. of Law, (2d ed.) 415, Title “Accord and Satisfaction,” “ Where, by a mode or time of payment, variant from that provided for in the contract, a new benefit is or may be conferred upon the creditor, or burden imposed upon the debtor, a new consideration arises out of the transaction and gives validity to the agreement of the creditor.”

The court below was right, therefore, in not treating the fact of payment at Worcester or in our money rather than sterling as of importance or requiring instructions to the jury.

[464]*464We need not now inquire, and we do not decide, whether payment in part by a stranger to the debt is a good considera-' tian for the release of the balance of the demand. The instructions to the jury adopted that view of the law, and told them that if the part payment was made by the defendant’s father upon the condition that the defendant should be released from all responsibility and the condition <£ was made either by the original authority of the owners of the drafts or was subsequently ratified by them, then that would be a release and satisfaction.” The part payment having been made to and the agreement entered into with a mere agent for collection this was at least sufficiently favorable to the defendant.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
59 N.E. 192, 177 Mass. 457, 1901 Mass. LEXIS 673, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/saunders-v-whitcomb-mass-1901.