Case ID: ind_3/html/0517-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Smoot v. Dye.
    
      A. sold to B. a judgment, B. agreeing to discharge a debt of A. to O. in part payment. C. assented to the arrangement, released A., and after-wards recovered a judgment against B., in his own name, for the debt. A. afterwards sued B. for the identical money which B. had thus agreed to pay C. Held, that the suit would not lie.
    
      D. Kilgore and T. J. Sample, for the plaintiff.
    
      J. S. Buckles and W. March, for the defendant.
    
      Tuesday, November 23.
    ERROR to the Delaware Circuit Court.
    Assumpsit by Dye against Smoot for an alleged unpaid balance upon the sale of a judgment. Recovery by the plaintiff. The case turns upon the evidence. The point will be understood from the following statement :
    
      Dye sold a judgment to Smoot, received a certain amount in payment, and required Smoot, in addition to said amount, to pay a certain fee claimed by Jeremiah Smith. Smoot agreed to pay said fee to Smith. Failing to do it with sufficient promptness, Smith sued him in his (Smith's) name, in assumpsit, for said fee, and recovered below. Smoot brought that case to this Court, where the judgment below was affirmed on the ground that the evidence showed that Dye had released and Smith accepted Smoot for the debt in question; and that, therefore, Smith could recover it of Smoot in his own name.
    This suit is now prosecuted by Dye, in his name, to recover from Smoot the sum that had been transferred to and recovered by Smith. Regarding the arrangement between Dye, Smoot, and Smith, as a transfer of Dye’s claim on Smoot to Smith, by the concurrence of the three, Dye possesses no legal right to sue in this case, and, the money having been once recovered by Smith, it is surely unjust that it should be again recovered by Dye. . On this point we reverse the case upon the evidence.
    The judgment is reversed with costs. Cause remanded, &c.