Case Name: Horatio Merrill vs. Edward P. Merrill
Court: Maine Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Maine
Decision Date: 1873
Citations: 63 Me. 78
Docket Number: 
Parties: Horatio Merrill vs. Edward P. Merrill.
Judges: Appleton, C. J., Cutting, Barrows and Peters, JJ., concurred.
Reporter: Maine Reports
Volume: 63
Pages: 78–81

Head Matter:
Horatio Merrill vs. Edward P. Merrill.
Statute of limitations. S. S. c. 81, § 83. Witnessed note.
An action for money had and received sustained by a valid promissory note, signed in the presence of an attesting witness, is an action on such note within the meaning of R. S., c. 81, § 83, and may be maintained within the same limitation as if the note had been specifically declared upon.
On exceptions.
The writ by which this action was commenced bore date the tenth day of October, 1871, and was returnable to the January term, 1872, of this court for this county. The plea was the genral issue and the statute of limitations. When the cause came on for trial the plaintiff moved for leave to amend by adding two special counts, one upon a note of the defendant to the plaintiff, dated July 7, 1857, for $1780.00 payable in one year from date with interest, and the other upon a note between the same parties, for $1-775.00, payable in one year with interest, which amendment the presiding justice declined to allow. The case was submitted to the presiding judge, with the right to except, who found as matter of fact that the defendant gave his promissory note to the plaintiff on the seventh day of June, 1857, bearing that date for $1780.00, payable in six months from date with interest; that the note was signed in the presence of an attesting witness and was destroyed in the great fire in Portland, July 4,1866; and ruled, as matter of law, that the statute of limitations was a bar to this action: to which ruling the plaintiff excepted.
A. Merrill, for the plaintiff,
cited 1 Chitty on Pleading, 113, 372 ; 3 Burr., 1516 ;.Fairbanks v. Stanley, 18 Maine, 402; Howe v. Saunders, 38 Maine, 352 ; Sturtevant v. Randall, 53 Maine, 149.
T. B. Reed, for the defendant.
R. S., c. 81, § 79, bars “all actions of assumpsit,” &c., not brought within six years from the time the cause accrued; section 83, excepts those brought upon witnessed notes'. This is an action for money had and received, not one brought upon a note, that document having only been resorted to as a piece of evidence in the suit, not as the foundation of it.

Opinion:
Rescript by
Danforth, J.
An action for money had and received, sustained by a valid promissory note, signed in the presence of an attesting witness, is an action upon such note, within the meaning of R. S., c. 81, § 83, and may be maintained within the same period of limitation as if the note had been specifically declared upon.
jExceptions sustained.
Appleton, C. J., Cutting, Barrows and Peters, JJ., concurred.