Case Name: Atkinson against Teasdale
Court: South Carolina Court of Common Pleas
Jurisdiction: South Carolina
Decision Date: 1793-01
Citations: 1 Bay 299
Docket Number: 
Parties: Atkinson against Teasdale.
Judges: (present, Rutledge, Ch. J. Grimke, J. and Bay, J.)
Reporter: South Carolina Law Reports
Volume: 1
Pages: 299–299

Head Matter:
Atkinson against Teasdale.
Debts due by a tactor to a purchaser of rice, fee. cannot be set off in discount against the demand <of the original owner, brought byliim against such purchaser,
ÁSSÜMPSIT for fifty barrels of rice, of the value of 128/. 12s. 4d. sold by one Fardo, a factor, who afterwards became insolvent.
The defence set up was, that the rice was purchased from Pardo, and the defendant being in possession of Pardo’s note, as also of a bond, assigned over to him, he contended he had a right to set them off against the purchase-money for the rice, as in the transaction he had nothing to do with Atkinson, the present plaintiff. But

Opinion:
The Court
(present, Rutledge, Ch. J. Grimke, J. and Bay, J.)
overruled the plea and discount, being clearly of opinion that the factor, in this case, was only the servant of his principal, and that the property remained in him till actual payment of the money. That payment to the factor, it is true, would have been good payment to the principal, if there had been any receipt to shew it had been made. But, on the other hand again, there was neither law nor justice in favour of the purchaser's setting up a debt due from the factor to him, (much less to third persons, and negotiated to him,) against the fair demand of the original owner. In fact, it would be neither more nor less than robbing one manto pay the debt of another.
Verdict for the plaintiff.