Case ID: wash_4/html/0724-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Scott, J. —", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

[No. 467.
    Decided August 29, 1892.]
    J. D. Rice and M. Reinhart, Respondents, v. Yakima and Pacific Coast Railway Company, Appellant.
    
    ACTION BY ASSIGNEE — PLEADING-CLAIM NOT IN EXISTENCE.
    The complaint in an action upon an account which had been assigned to plaintiff need not allege that the assignment is in writing, even in case proof of written assignment should be necessary upon the trial.
    In an action upon an assignment of an account for a sum due, and for a further sum to be earned in the future, the complaint is not demurrable on the ground that it is founded on a claim not in existence at the time of the assignment, as it states a cause of action for the sum which was due at that time.
    
      
      Appeal from Superior Court, Lewis County.
    
    
      Mitchell, Ashton & Chapman, for appellant.
    
      Reynolds & Stewart, for respondents..
   The opinion of the court was delivered hy

Scott, J. —

Respondents brought an action to recover from the appellant a sum of money alleged to be due them by virtue of an assignment from one W. F. Lowe, who boarded men in the employ of appellant. The assignment was made to cover a sum then due and also such further sum as might become due the assignor in the future for certain months specified by reason of boarding men as aforesaid. The appellant filed a general demurrer to the complaint contending that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action because it did not allege that said assignment was in writing. And appellant further contends that the instrument was void in consequence of its purporting to assign a claim not then in existence. It is admitted, however, that eighty dollars of said sum was earned at the time the assignment was made. It was not necessary that the complaint should allege the assignment to be in writing even though it may have been necessary to have proven a written assignment when the cause came on for trial.

It being admitted that the sum of eighty dollars was due when the assignment was made, a general demurrer would not reach the point that said assignment was not good for the sum to be earned in the future, and there being a cause of action for the said sum due, it follows that the demurrer was rightfully overruled, and the judgment of the superior court is affirmed.

Anders, O. J., and Dunbar, Stiles and Hoyt, JJ., concur.