257 Mass. 559 | Mass. | 1926
The plaintiff was a dealer in flour. The defendant Henri Rousseau was a baker, who made purchases of flour from the plaintiff from time to time upon an open account. He made payments irregularly, which were credited on this account; and also, at times, gave notes to the plaintiff, but no credit was given on the account until the notes were paid. On April 18, 1921, the account showed a balance claim against the defendant Henri Rousseau of
At the hearing without a jury in the Superior Court, the judge “upon all the evidence,” found “that the plaintiff did not intend to accept the note [in suit] in payment of an open account or any part of it, and that there was no understanding or agreement between the plaintiff and the defendant or the Rousseau Bating Company as to the application of the payments made from time to time, except that when made, they should be applied to the running account.” The judge ruled, subject to exception by the plaintiff, “that where neither the debtor nor the creditor makes a special appropriation of payments at the time when they are made, but they are entered as general credits on the general account, the creditor cannot make a special application of them thereafter to any special part of the account.”
The rule as to application of payments in the case of running accounts with many debits and credits is stated by Wells, J., in Crompton v. Pratt, 105 Mass. 255, at 257, as follows: “The general rule of law, in case of payments
Applying the law thus stated to the findings of fact, the further fact appears that since the date of the note, April 18, 1921, payments on the open account have been made in excess of the indebtedness of the defendant Henri Rousseau on that date. It results that the indebtedness for which the plaintiff held the note in pledge or as collateral security has been extinguished and discharged, and it follows that the payment of the account which the note secured discharged the obligation of the maker of the note to the payee of the note, and revested in him all title to and beneficial interest in the pledged or collateral security.
Upon the facts, the requested rulings numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, were inapplicable to the questions of fact in issue, and were rightly refused. The conversation between the plaintiff and defendant in the court house on the morning of the trial, to the effect that the defendant asked the plaintiff “whether or not they could settle before they went into court,” and the plaintiff replied: “I will see my lawyer about it”; and the defendant stated “that he couldn’t pay the five hundred at one time but would be willing to
The finding for the defendant was right.
Exceptions overruled.