Case ID: va_1/html/0436-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "CARRINGTON, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Scott’s Executors v. Call.
    October Term, 1792.
    
    Action of Debt on Bill of Exchange for Sterling Money —Declaration—Judgshent.—In an action of debt upon a protested bill of exchange, drawn for sterling money, If the declaration is for the current money value of the sum for which the bill was drawn, the judgment being for the sum so demanded, will be reversed on a writ of error. — The suit should have been for the sterling money.
    This was an action of debt, brought by the appellee against the appellant, upon a protested bill of exchange, drawn by the testator of the appellant, for ¿187.: 15, sterling for value received: as also, for the damages at the rate of 10 per cent, together with the charges of protest &c. The declaration demands the ¿187: 15, sterling of the value of ¿250 : 6 : 8, current money; and 4s. 6 sterling of the value of 6s. current money and interest at the rate of 10 per centum per annum, on the said ¿250: 6: 8, from the date of the bill: it states also the protest; “whereby and by virtue of the act of Assembly in that case made, action accrued to the plaintiff, to have and demand of the defendant the said ¿187: 15 sterling, of the value aforesaid, and the said 4s. 6 sterling of the va’ue aforesaid, and interest as aforesaid:” the breach assigned is, in the nonpayment of the said several sums of money and interest &c. to the plaintiff’s damage of ¿500. Upon the plea of payment, the jury found that the defendant’s testator had not paid the debt in the declaration mentioned, and assessed the plaintiff’s damages to one penny. The court gave judgment that the plaintiff recover ¿509: 3: 6 sterling, the principal, interest and charges of protest, together with interest thereon, after the rate of five per centum per annum from that day; and they settled the exchange at 33j¿ per cent.
    Exceptions being taken to the opinion of the court, upon certain points moved by the defendant’s counsel, an appeal was prayed to this court.
    «The question made by the bill of exceptions was; whether the plaintiff, to entitle himself, under«the act of Assembly, to 10 per cent, damages beyond 18-months, ought not to prove an actual presentation of the bill protested to the drawer within that time.
    
      
      The principal case is distinguished in Skipwith v. Baird, 2 Wash. 166, 167. See monographic note on •‘Debt, The Action of” appended to Davis v. Mead, 13 Gratt. 118 ; monographic note on “Judgments” appended to Smith v. Charlton, 7 Gratt. 426.
    
   CARRINGTON, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

The point which was argued at the bar, and which grows out of the bill of exceptions, need not be decided, as the court think the judgment erroneous in this, that the demand in the declaration is for the current money value of a debt, due in sterling money, on a protested bill of exchange, which is recoverable in sterling money only.

The judgment therefore must be reversed: with costs.