Case ID: njl_1/html/0227-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Cur.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

FRANKLIN, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. EXECUTORS OF CAMP.
    Where an account has been of long standing, and the last item in it entered more than six years, still, if there had not been an actual settlement, it is to be considered a running account, and not barred by the statute of limitations.
    This case came before the court by a writ of error, on a bill of exceptions taken to the opinion of the Court of Common Pleas of Essex county.
    It appeared that Franklin and Camp were both merchants, the former residing in New York, the latter in Newark, and, in that capacity, had dealings together. The day-book, being produced, proved mutual dealings between them, and the balance in favor of the plaintiff, in August, 1774, for £59 4s. 3d. The last item in the account was of that date; and the testator died about the year 1776 or 1777. The question was whether the claim was barred by the statute of limitations.
   Per Cur.

In Bacon’s Abridgment, title “ Limitation of Actions,” 4 Bac. 478, where the exceptions to the statute are mentioned, it is stated that accounts current between merchants are within the exceptions. In Carthew 226; 1 Shower 341; 2 Mod. 312; 4 Mod. 105, the same doctrine is expressed. What, then, is a current account? Clearly, every one in which there has not been a balance agreed upon and struck between the parties. In the case before the court, no fact appears in the bill of exceptions to prove this a stated account; hence, the statute cannot operate to bar the plaintiff's demand. See Ramchander v. Hammond,, 2 Johns. 200.

Whatever Lord Hard wicke may have meant by the language he is reported to have held in the case of Welford v. Liddel, 2 Vesey 400,pl. 127, that it was not meant to prevent the defendant from pleading the statute, where the account is closed and concluded between the parties, but to prevent the dividing the accounts between merchants, where it was a running ae[197]-count, when perhaps part might have begun long before, and the account never settled, and perhaps there might have been dealings and transactions since the statute, the same doctrines are not corroborated, so far as my knowledge extends, by any other authority. In that case the opinion was not upon the point in controversy, but it is to be regarded in the light of an extra-judicial dictum.

Let the judgment be reversed.