Case ID: del_6/html/0148-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      By the Court:\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Henry F. Rodney, Executor of Robert Burton, deceased, v. Peter Warrington.
    The report of referees on a rule of reference sustained by the Court,’ on the party consenting, in whose favor the report was made, to enter a credit upon it for a payment proved to have been made by the-other party, but which the referees had disallowed.
    Rule to set aside the report of referees on a rule of reference out of Court. The evidence before the referees was that the parties had had frequent dealings prior to the year 1847, when Robert Burton, the deceased, paid Warrington eighty dollars and gave him his bond for nine . hundred dollars, which was afterwards paid by him. Itwas proved, however, that the bond was for ap interest in a schooner sold by Warrington to Burton, and was to have no reference to their other dealings. Some of the items in the account of the plaintiff were barred by the statute of limitations, at the time of the institution of the suit referred, and some of the items in his account were disallowed by the referees, but whether for that cause did not appear to the Court. The report was in favor of the defendant in the rule for $220, and the referees had disallowed to the executor of Burton credit for the eighty dollars proved to have been paid by him, under the impression that it had been paid by Burton for the benefit of another, and not on his own account to Warrington. The statute of limitations was pleaded in the action, and it was proved that t>n the trial before th'e referees the defendant insisted that a large portion of the account was barred by the act, and that the account was settled and discharged at the time of the payment of the eighty dollars and the delivery of the bond for $900, which was afterwards paid; upon which grounds it was contended that the report should be set aside.
   By the Court:

We are satisfied that the evidence before the referees clearly established the payment of the eighty dollars by Burton, the deceased, to Warrington, the plaintiff in the action referred, although it is not clear that there was a settlement of the accounts between them at that time; and the conclusion to which the Court has come is this,—to set aside the report, unless the plaintiff Will now consent to enter a credit for that sum with interest from the date of its payment, but if he consents to do so, to confirm the report.

E. D. Cullen, for plaintiff.

C. S. Layton, for defendant.

The plaintiff consented, and after deducting the credit the report was affirmed.