Case Name: Enoch Gammon vs. Alfred Dow & al.
Court: Maine Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Maine
Decision Date: 1840-04
Citations: 16 Me. 426
Docket Number: 
Parties: Enoch Gammon vs. Alfred Dow & al.
Judges: 
Reporter: Maine Reports
Volume: 16
Pages: 426–427

Head Matter:
Enoch Gammon vs. Alfred Dow & al.
Where the condition of a bond stipulates, that the obligor shall pay a certain note, given by the obligee to a third person, according to the tenor thereof, and in conclusion says, that the bond shall be void, if the obligor shall pay the note on reasonable demand made therefor ; an action on the bond, commenced six months after the note fell due, cannot be maintained without proof of the demand on the obligor prior to the suit.
Debt on a bond given by the defendants to the plaintiff, dated March 11, 1835. The bond provided that the defendants should pay certain notes given by the plaintiff to a third person, payable at different stipulated times, and also pay certain notes payable at different times, given to the plaintiff by the defendants. The bond concluded thus. “ All which are to be paid according to the tenor of said notes respectively. Now if said Dow and Thorp shall and do, on reasonable demand made therefor, pay to them or their order the full amount of the notes aforesaid, with interest which has accrued and which may accrue thereon, then this obligation, &c.” One of the notes, payable to the third person, had fallen due March 1'0, 1836, and this action was commenced September 8, 1836, but the plaintiff had made no demand whatever of the defendants for payment of either of the notes. Several other questions were presented in the statement of facts, and argued by counsel, but the Court made no decision thereon.
W. P. Fessenden, for the plaintiff,
contended, that the true construction of the bond was this. The defendants were to pay the notes within a reasonable time after the notes fell due. Such time liad elapsed before the suit was brought.
Fessenden & Deblois, for the defendants,
argued, that no action could be supported on the bond, by its terms, until after a reasonable demand, which must be made after the note fell due.

Opinion:
The opinion of the Court was drawn up by
Weston C. J.
The plaintiff, to sustain his action, must show, that when it was commenced, there was a breach of the condition of the bond. This depends upon its terms, to which we must look to ascertain the liability assumed by the defendants. It consisted in certain payments, which were to be made by them, on reasonable demand. This evidently implies, that before they could be chargeable with a breach of the condition, a demand must first be made upon them; and that demand was to be a reasonable one. What would be a reasonable demand, we are under no necessity of deciding, for none whatever was made. If the condition of the bond had been, to pay the notes at their maturity, no demand would have been necessary. But we must take the contract, as the parties have made it; and by that, a reasonable demand was first to be made by the plaintiff.
Judgment for the, defendants.