Case ID: va_1/html/0473-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "The PRESIDENT", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Tomlin, Mitchell, and How v. Kelly.
    April Term, 1793.
    Limitations — Act of 1779 — To What Applies. — The Act of Assembly ot October, 1779, c. 3, “lor discouraging1 extensive credit, and repealing- the law prescribing the method of proving book debts,” applies only to the store accounts of retail merchants.
    This was an action upon the case, for goods sold and delivered, brought by the plaintiffs in the General Court,
    «from whence it was sent to the District Court of Northumberland. The jury found a special verdict, in the following words to wit, “we find for the plaintiff, ^100: 9: 6J4 damages, if the court shall be of opinion, that an action can be maintained, for goods, wares and merchandizes, imported for sale, by the plaintiffs, who kept no retail store, but who sold the same at public auction, on a wharf, and delivered them to the defendant twelve months before this suit was brought, otherwise we find for the defendant.”—
    Judgment upon this special verdict was given for the. defendant ' in the District Court, and a writ of supersedeas was granted by this court.
    Campbell for the plaintiffs in error.
    The question is, whether this case shall be construed to come within the, operation of the act of October 1779 Ch. 3, “for discouraging extensive credits, and repealing the act prescribing the method of proving book debts.” I am to contend it does not.
    The act passed in 1748, which is intended to be repealed, will serve to throw light upon the true intention of the legislature, in passing the law more immediately in question. The preamble to that law, as well as the enacting clause, is literally confined to the sale of goods by retail, and was intended to provide a species of evidence unknown to the common law; by which, retail merchants were permitted to prove their' store accounts by their own oath. This law, not only opened a door to perjuries, and to infinite frauds, but tended to encourage extensive credits, from the facility of establishing such demands. To repeal this law, and to do awaj' its effects as to extensive credits, was obviously the design of the act of 1779. The preamble recites, that the method of proving book debts, and the extensive credits formerly given by merchants and traders, had been found injurious to this commonwealth : the law then proceeds to repeal the law of 1748, and to enact, “that all actions, founded upon account for goods sold and delivered, or for any articles charged in any store account, shall be commenced within six months, after the cause of action accrued, and not after.” The mischief stated in the preamble, existed only in the retail business, which, almost entirely formed the internal commerce of this country, before the war, and of course, must have been alluded to, by the legislature.
    The law requires each item in the account, to be truly dated, which is an additional proof, that the retail trade was alone contemplated.
    «Warden for the defendant.
    When a law is expressed, as this is, in general terms, reasons for forming constructive exceptions from it, ought to be so strong, as to leave nothing to conjecture — whenever we quit the plain expressions of a law, to wander at large in the wide field of construction, we should be sure, that the guides we take will not mislead us.
    The legislature had two motives for passing the law of 1779 — -the one, to repeal the act of 1748, because it warranted an unsafe species of evidence — the other, to prevent extensive credits, as an evil independent of, and not growing out of the act of 1748 —for if it had necessarily resulted from that law, it must have expired with the law, and need not have been stated as a primary mischief, intended to be cured. If it had been considered merely as a consequence, it was highly absurd to entitle the law, ‘ ‘an act for discouraging extensive credits, and repealing the law prescribing the method of proving book debts.” The second clause of the act, creates a bar against all actions founded upon account for goods sold and delivered, or for any-articles charged in any store account.
    Now, is this an action for goods sold and delivered, or not? If the law only meant store accounts, why is the former part of this clause inserted? the latter would have answered the purpose.
    If it were politic, to prevent extensive credits in the confined sales of a retail store, the reason applies a fortiori to extensive wholesale negociations; if it were wise to prevent it, when transacted in a house by-private bargain, was it not equally so, if •sold upon a wharf at public auction.
    
      
      Limitations — Acts of 1779 — To What Applies. — For the proposition that the Act of 1779, ch. 8, for discouraging extensive credit applies only to store accounts of retail merchants, the principal case is cited in foot-note to Beall v. Edmondson, 3 Call 515; Wortham v. Smith, 15 Gratt. 491, 493, 494, 495, and foot-note; Radford v. Fowlkes, 85 Va. 852, 8 S. E. Rep. 817.
    
   The PRESIDENT

delivered'the opinion of the court.

In discussing the case of Beale and Ed-mundson, it was agreed by the unanimous opinion of a full court, that the act of 1779, applied only to the store accounts of retail dealers; and we should feel ourselves bound by that opinion, unless it were over-ruled by as full a court, even if our sentiments at this time, respecting the principle then established were different from what they then were. But the present court retain the same opinion upon the subject; and must therefore pronounce the law to be in favour of the plaintiffs, upon the special conclusion of the verdict.

Judgment reversed, and to be entered for the plaintiff.