Thayer v. Daniels

110 Mass. 345

• Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
• Decided: October 15, 1872
• Status: Published

Opinion

Ames, J.

There was an implied promise, on the part of the defendant, as principal, to indemnify the surety, and to repay to him all the money that he might be compelled, in consequence of his liability as surety, to pay to the creditor. Until the surety has been compelled to make such payment, there is no breach of this implied promise. The cause of action accrues then for the first time, and the statute of limitations then begins to run. Of course the exception that the claim of the plaintiff is barred by that statute cannot be maintained. Appleton v. Bascom, 3 Met. 169. Hall v. Thayer, 12 Met. 130.

At the time when the defendant petitioned for the benefit of the insolvent law, the plaintiff’s cause of action against him had not accrued. Nothing was due at that time from the insolvent to the plaintiff, and whether anything would become due depended upon the contingency of his being compelled to pay, and actually paying, the note, in whole or in part. If the plaintiff had taken up the note, or made a payment upon it, at any time before the making of the first dividend, his claim for the money so paid would have been provable against the estate of the insolvent, under the Gen. Sts. c. 118, § 25, and would therefore have been barred by the discharge. But it appears from the report that no money was paid by the plaintiff as surety, and no cause of action accrued to him against the insolvent, until long after the first and only dividend was paid from his estate.

The case of Mace v. Wells, 7 How. 272, which is relied upon by the defendant, arose under the bankrupt act of 1841, a statute which differed from our insolvent law, in allowing sureties and other' parties under a contingent liability to prove such contingent liabilities as claims upon the estate, and “ when theil debts and claims become absolute,” to have them allowed.

The defendants also insist that the debt itself was provable and was therefore discharged; but this is not true as to the contingent claim of the surety. He had no claim that was provable under the statute, at the date of the discharge.

Two other cases relied upon by the defendant, Wood v. Dodgson, 2 M. & S. 195, and Vansandau v. Corsbie, 8 Taunt. 550, were decided under English statutes which in express terms make the contingent liability of a surety a provable claim against the bankrupt’s estate. In the first of these cases the court say that the statute was intended to benefit the sureties, by allowing them to share in the dividend before the estate is all gone, and before the actual payment of their liabilities. Neither of these decisions is applicable to a case under our insolvent laws.

Exceptions overruled.