110 Pa. 254 | Pa. | 1885
delivered the opinion of the court, October 5 th, 1885.
When the plaintiffs intestate died, he was already indebted by a complete and perfect obligation to the defendant Houston. Suit could have been brought immediately by Houston and recovery had for the whole amount, notwithstanding the noto held by Henderson against Houston, because the latter was not yet due : Zuck & Henry v. McClure & Co., 2 Out., 541. It is evident then that when, upon Henderson’s death, the note against Houston passed to his administrator, it did so clogged with the whole of Henderson’s debt to Houston for the very reason that it was a perfected debt at the time of Henderson’s death. Nor, in such case, is Henderson’s insolvency at all material. This is precisely what we decided in Light v. Leininger, 8 Barr, 403. In that case Coulter, J., said : “ In answer to the argument of his (the administrator’s) counsel here, that the debt or demand was assets in the hands of the administrator, I have only to remark that, as the decedent could not have received the demand in his lifetime, it was not a debt recoverable at his death, and never went into the hands of his administrator as assets.....It is only the balance that is a debt and in relation to that balance he stands on the same platform with the other creditors.” Had the position of these parties been reversed so that Henderson’s debt to Houston was not due and payable at Henderson’s death, but Houston’s debt to Henderson was then due and payable, the application of the same principle would have prevented Houston from setting off his debt against Henderson in an action by Henderson’s administrator, because, at Henderson's death, there was no right of set-off and the right of action passed to the administrator unaffected by the right of set-off. It is true if the estate were solvent the set-off would be allowed, not because the right of set-off existed at the intes
Judgment affirmed.