Case ID: scl_1/html/0114-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Waties, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Colcock and Gibbons against Wainright.
    
      August 30, 1790.
    A depreciation, fixed by arbitrators before the depreciation act, shall bind the parties; though the plaintiffs may have been obliged to pay considerably more than that act would have compelled them to have paid.
    THE plaintiffs had been indebted to the defendant, in a bond given (as it appeared) for the purchase of a house, in the time of depreciated money, and while the British were in possession of Charleston. T he defendant threatening to sue them, the plaintiffs, to avoid, as they alleged, an unpleasant contest, agreed to pay the debt, on its being liquidated, with such depreciation as arbitrators should fix. At that time, no depreciation table was established. The debt was depreciated by the arbitrators, and the money paid. Afterwards, when the legal depreciation table was established by the legislature, it appeared that the plaintiffs had paid much more than that table would have fixed the bond at. The plaintiffs commenced this action (for money had and received) to recover back the surplus.
    The defendant proved that the house was worth the sum fixed by the arbitrators, and contended that no injustice was done. That the plaintiffs were bound by their subsequent acquiescence to the arbitration.
   Waties, J.

Even if a settlement were made by parties at this day, though different from the depreciation table, it would bind them. This is a liberal action, and the jury can do what appears to them to be equitable and conscientious. 'There are two questions. 1. Whether the depreciation table dees apply ; and I think it does not in this case. 2, Whether this was a fair and voluntary settlement; I think it was. The house appears to have been worth then, as well as now, the sum fixed by the arbitrators. Nothing appears to impeach the transaction,

Verdict for defendant,

See the case of M'Graw and wife v. Lowndes, vol. 2.