Case ID: va_29/html/0461-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "per curiam,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Rootes v. Stone.
    April, 1831.
    (Absent Coalter, J., and Brooke, P.)
    Attorney and Client — Negligence—Liability—Interest. —An attorney at law is employed to collect debts, and some of them are lost to Ills client through his negligence: Held, the attorney is chargeable for the principal of the debts so lost, but not with interest thereon.
    On an appeal from a decree of the supe-riour court of chancery of Williamsburg, upon a bill exhibited by Stone against Rootes, shewing that Stone had placed a large number of bonds, notes, and other evidences of debts, in the hands of Rootes, for collection, as an attorney at law, and praying an account of Rootes’s transactions in that agency; a question arose, whether Rootes ought to be charged with interest on the amount of some of the debts, which he might have collected with proper diligence, but which were ^wholly lost to his client through his negligence, and with which he was therefore held chargeable, or only with the principal of the debts so lost?
    
      
      Fiduciaries — Loss of Debt through Negligence — Liability for Interest. — To the point that, independent of statute, in Virginia, executors and other fiduciaries are not held, liable for interest upon debts lost by their negligence or other misconduct, the principal case was cited in Chapman v. Shepherd, 24 Gratt. 382, 383. But, in this case (Chapman v. Shepherd) it was held that where executors fail by their negligence to collect a debt due to their testator by a bond under a penalty, the debtor being good for the money at the death of the testator and continuing good for it for fourteen years, when he failed, the executors are chargeable with the principal and interest thereon up to the time of the failure of the debtor but that they are not chargeable with interest after that time. Judge Staples, in delivering the opinion of the court, said, p. 385: ‘ 'The rule of law which exempts a fiduciary from the payment of interest upon a debt lost through his default, is a hard one. and has been remedied by statute (for statute, see below.) Neither sound policy, nor any well-settled principle, requires that the court shall extend this exception to interest which was as easily collectible as the principal. It is supposed, however, that this is in conilict with Bootes ritone. A copy of the decree of this court in that case has been furnished by the counsel for the appellee. This decree charges the attorney with the debts lost by his negligence. But we have no means of ascertaining what these debts were. It may be that no interest had accrued upon them, or that by the form of the contract or the nature of the debt, the creditor was entitled to interest only from the date of the verdict of a jury. Upon these points the report of the case in 2 Leigh 650, furnishes no information. Indeed that report is too meagre and obscure to render the decision a conclusive authority upon this court, in determining the questions involved in the present case.”
      To the point that, where an attorney at law has lost debt by negligence he is liable for the principal of the debts, but-not with interest thereon, the principal case was cited in Stearns v. Mason, 24 G-ratt. 494.
      But, by statute (Va. Code 1849, p. 548, ch. 132, § 6, Code 1887. § 2676), it is provided that if any fiduciary mentioned in the chapter, or any agent, or attorney at law, shall, by his negligence or improper conduct, lose any debt or other money, he shall be charged with the principal of what is so lost, and interest thereon, in like manner as if he had received such principal.
    
   And,

per curiam,

he ought to be charged with the principal only.