Case Title: Dechand Roofing & Supply Co. v. Schumaker

Citation: 174 Kan. 82, 254 P.2d 326

Docket Number: 38,825

State: kansas

Court: Kansas Supreme Court

Date: 1953-03-07T00:00:00Z

Document:
174 Kan. 82 (1953)
254 P.2d 326
DECHAND ROOFING & SUPPLY CO., INC., Appellant,
v.
LAWRENCE SCHUMAKER, Appellee.
No. 38,825

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed March 7, 1953.
George E. McCullough, and Robert L. Kimbrough, of Topeka, were on the brief for the appellant.
No appearance for the appellee.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
WERTZ, J.:
This is an appeal from a judgment of the trial court sustaining a demurrer to plaintiff's petition on the ground that the action was barred by the statute of limitations. The action was upon an open account in the sum of $650.27 for the installation of a furnace in April, 1946, and a reinstallation in May, 1947. Two credits for payments in the sum of $100 each were made on May 13, 1947, and May 28, 1948, respectively, leaving a balance due on the latter date of $450.27. Plaintiff commenced this action for the balance due on the open account on January 30, 1952, more than three years after the last credit on the account, and to save the action from the bar of the three year statute of limitations (G.S. 1949, 60-306, Second), alleged in a subsequent amended petition that on February *83 1, 1949, and also on February 16, 1952, defendant wrote and signed certain letters to the plaintiff in which he acknowledged the indebtedness evidenced by the account as an existing obligation. The letters relied upon by the plaintiff as sufficient to toll the statute of limitations are as follows:
"Sirs:
"Sirs:
Appellant contends that the statements contained in the mentioned letters of February 1, 1949, and February 16, 1952, were sufficient written acknowledgment of the account as an existing liability to toll the statute of limitations, and that the court erred in sustaining the demurrer to his petition. Plaintiff relies on G.S. 1949, 60-312, which reads as follows:
We have been called upon many times to construe the mentioned statute, and we have consistently held that to interrupt the running of the statute of limitations against an existing liability, debt or *84 demand, or to revive such a liability already barred by the statute, there must be a distinct and unequivocal acknowledgment of the obligation as a present, existing liability. (Golden Rule Oil Co. v. Liebst, 153 Kan. 123, 125, 109 P.2d 95, and cases therein cited.)
In Hottell v. Kemp, 139 Kan. 239, 31 P.2d 64, at page 242 we stated:
In Hamilton v. Beaubien, supra, we said:
In the more recent case of Updegrove v. Cooper, 147 Kan. 752, 78 P.2d 843, we reviewed the many decisions of this court interpreting the foregoing statute, and concluded that in order for a letter of a debtor on an account to be sufficient to remove the bar of the statute of limitations, the letter must contain a distinct and unequivocal acknowledgment of a present existing debt for which the writer admits liability.
An acknowledgment in writing that a debt once existed but which does not contain an admission of a present subsisting debt on which *85 the party is liable is insufficient to avoid the bar of the statute of limitations.
Tested by the foregoing well-established rules of law, a careful examination of the contents of defendant's letters reveal that they contain nothing more than a general reference to an indebtedness. The second letter, by implication, is a denial of the liability. The letter begins with the words: "I read a summons for the bill which you say I owe you." There is no acknowledgment in this statement of a present existing liability. The letter further states that when he bought the furnace in 1944 the total amount was to be $478 (not $650.27, the amount sued for). Since that time defendant paid $200 on the account and, by impliciation, denies liability but says inasmuch as he has been sued, he will offer a compromise of the lawsuit by paying $25 a month for 12 months, and further stated, had the amount for the furnace installation been correct, as agreed upon, it would have been paid by his son. This offer of compromise cannot be construed as an unequivocal admission of a present existing liability.
In line with the above-cited decisions of this court, we have no difficulty in concluding that the letters of the defendant, taken in the most favorable light for the plaintiff, and with all proper inferences, which is the correct rule upon the hearing of a demurrer, are too indefinite and uncertain, in and of themselves, to constitute an acknowledgement of a present existing indebtedness or liability sufficient to avoid the bar of the statute of limitations, as contemplated by G.S. 1949, 60-312. The trial court did not err in sustaining the demurrer to the plaintiff's petition.
The judgment is affirmed.