Case ID: yeates_2/html/0208-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Per curiam.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Executors of Henry Darroch against administrators of Michael Hay.
    Debts which can be set-off must be such as are due in the same right.
    
      SUM case stated. The defendants’ intestate, Michael Hay, was indebted to the plaintiffs3 testator in a certain sum of money, which is not disputed. After the deaths of both, the administrator of Hay gave a valuable consideration to John Philip de Haas, for a check drawn by Henry Darroch, in the following words and figures:
    “Philadelphia, March 10, 1793, No. 291.
    Cashier of the Bank of the United States.
    Pay to Mr. P de Hass, or bearer, four hundred dollars.
    400 Dollars. H. DARROCH.”
    The present action was brought after the check became the property of the defendants, and notice of set-off was given when the action wTas brought; and the question is, whether the defendants are entitled to the set-off?
    Mr. Rawle for the defendants.
    It is competent to the administrators to purchase in any negotiable instrument-to protect the intestate’s estate, and the money paid for the check in this instance being assets in their hands, it results to the benefit of the estate. No injustice is done hereby, since the testator honestly owned that the debt contended to be defaulked. A bond given by an insolvent debtor before his discharge by the act, and afterwards assigned to A., may be given in evidence by way of set-off, against a suit brought by such insolvent debtor, for goods sold to A. after his discharge. Dall. 455. Here the check was purchased before the suit brought.
    Mr. Thomas for the plaintiffs.
    This check was not the property of the intestate at the time of his death, and his administrators shall not bo allowed to defaulk a sum which he could not himself have done. To sanctify the system now attempted to be practiced, would tend to destroy the system of equality intended to be established in the order of payment of deceased persons.
   Per curiam.

The set-off cannot be allowed. It could not be declared on as a debt due to the intestate; it could not be pleaded as such to this suit; it became the private debt of the administrators, on the purchase of the check. It is clearly settled that the debts which can be set-off must be such as are duo in the same right. Bull. 179, 180. Espin. 239, 240.

Judgment for the plaintiffs.

The Judges sat on the first day of September Term 1797; but a malignant infectious fever prevailing in the city of Philadelphia, attended with considerable mortality, the Court adjourned to the last day of the term. No other business was done, except taking the Sheriffs returns and entering the ordinary rules.