Case ID: me_80/html/0243-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Peters, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Emma J. Ames vs. Delbert Storer.
    Penobscot.
    Opinion March 7, 1888.
    
      Partial payment after discharge in insolvency. B. S., c. Ill, § l,p. VI.
    
    The voluntary partial payment of a judgment, after the same lias become barred by the debtor’s discharge in insolvency, does not revive and mate valid the balance of such judgment.
    On report.
    The action was debt on a judgment, and the defense was a: discharge in insolvency.
    To avoid the discharge, the plaintiff relied on a partial payment of the judgment, after the discharge, and an oral promise, at the time of such partial payment, to pay the balance of the judgment.
    
      Ira W. Davis, for the plaintiff,
    submitted without arguments
    
      II. P. Haynes, for the defendant,
    cited.: R. S-, c. Ill, § 1 3 Maine, 415; 4 Maine, 9, 263; 53 Maine, 24; 66 Maine, 343;. 73 Maine, 195.
   Peters, C. J.

These facts present-the question, whether the-voluntary partial payment of a judgment, after the judgment has-become barred by the debtor’s discharge in insolvency, has the-effect to revive the balance of the judgment so that the debtor is. bound by it anew.

The statute CR. S., c. Ill, § 1, p. 6,) forbids that any new promise shall have such an effect, unless it be in writing, and; signed by the party to be charged thereby. Certainly, the-payment of a part of a debt is not a written promise to pay the-balance. It might be regarded as some evidence of a promise to pay the debt, but the element of certainty, as required to be shown by written evidence, is utterly wanting.

Plaintiff nonsuit.

Walton, Danforth, Libbey, Emery and Haskell, JJ., concurred.