Case ID: vt_8/html/0117-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Williams, Ch. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Freman Fassett vs. Adi Vincent.
    Franklin,
    January, 1836.
    A defendant in an action on book, may prove by his own oath, that he has do. livered up to the plaintiff, in pursuance of an agreement between them, a ’ note which he held against the plaintiff and another, in payment of the plaintiff’s account.
    This was an action on book account commenced before a magistrate and carried by appeal to the county court by whom it was referred to an auditor. At the trial before the auditor the defen-dent exhibited a charge on book against the plaintiff of $ 10,04 cents, being the balance due on a note signed by the plaintiff and one Carr. The defendant offered his own oath to prove an agreement between himself and the plaintiff that the note in question should be applied upon the plaintiff’s account, and also to prove that he had delivered said note to the plaintiff for the purpose of being so applied. But the auditor decided that the note in question was not a proper subjectof book account, and that defendant’s oath could not be admitted in support of it.
    The county court sustained the decision of the auditor, where-; upon the defendant excepted.
    
      Mr. J. J. Beardsley for plaintiff,
    
    
      Mr. Stevens for defendant.
    
   The opinion of the court was delivered by

Williams, Ch. J.

The defendant should have been admitted to prove by his own oath, that the note specified was to be applied in payment of the plaintiff’s account, and that he bad delivered it for that purpose to the plaintiff. The auditor was probably correct in his opinion that a note is not a proper subject of book account,” but erred in his application of that principle to the case in controversy. If the articles delivered by the plaintiff to the defendant, had been delivered and received in payment of a note no action on book could be sustained for those articles. If a note had been delivered up by the defendant to the plaintiff in payment of the book account of the plaintiff against him, and was so received, it was as proper for the parties to testify to such payment in the action on book, as it would toa payment in any other way or in any other article. The offer made by the defendant was to prove payment of the plaintiff’s account in this way, and we think his testimony to that effect should have been received. The judgment of .the county court must therefore be reversed, and the cause .again referred to the same auditor to report at the next term.