Case Name: Edmund Langdon and Another, Administrators, versus Ambrose Potter and Another
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1816-09
Citations: 12 Tyng 319
Docket Number: 
Parties: *Edmund Langdon and Another, Administrators, versus Ambrose Potter and Another.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 13
Pages: 258–260

Head Matter:
*Edmund Langdon and Another, Administrators, versus Ambrose Potter and Another.
Where the attorney of a judgment creditor indorsed on the execution, that he had received the promissory note of a stranger, for a greater amount than the judgment debt, payable to the debtor, which the attorney was to collect, and that, in consideration thereof, he consented that the execution should be returned unsatisfied; and it was in evidence, that the money due by the note was lost by the negligence of the attorney; it was holden, that the judgment was not thereby discharged.
Debt on a judgment recovered September, 1807, for $209.47, debt and costs. The defendants pleaded, 1. Nul tiel record, the issue upon which the Court determined for the plaintiffs. 2. Satisfaction, upon which issue was joined to the country, which was tried at the sittings here after the last September term, before Putnam, J.
To prove satisfaction, the defendants produced an execution thd issued on the judgment declared on, and a return thereon dated the 20th of April, 1808, whereby it appeared, that J. Taylor, Esq., attorney for the plaintiffs, certified, that he had received a promissory note, signed by Gideon Chapin, payable to Baldwin Potter, one of the defendants, for $ 300 with interest, dated the second of December, 1807 ; which the said Taylor was to endeavour to collect, and in consideration of which he consented that the execution should be returned unsatisfied.
The defendants offered evidence to prove, that, when Mr. Taylor received the said note, the said Chapin was in good credit, and continued so until 1810; and that Mr. Taylor did not use his endeavours to collect the money due on the note, and that the same was lost by his neglect. The judge rejected this evidence as irrelevant ; and a verdict was returned for the plaintiffs. If the evidence which was thus rejected ought to have been admitted, a new trial was to be granted; otherwise, judgment was to be entered on the verdict.
Mills, for the defendants,
argued, that Taylor's receipt on the execution, and his subsequent neglect of collecting the money upon the note, by which the defendants have lost more than the amount of the judgment, amounted to satisfaction, or a discharge of the execution.
Ashmun and Strong, for the plaintiffs,
contended, that *they never received the note ; and although the authority of their attorney was sufficient to enable him to discharge the execution, yet he was in no case authorized to make them the factors of the defendants, to collect their debts, and to account to them for the moneys received. In fact, Taylor's undertaking was, that he would himself collect the money for the defendants ; and, if he has been guilty of laches, it was as their bailiff.
But, supposing Taylor's receipt on the execution to be binding upon the plaintiffs, yet it did not .purport a discharge of the execution. On the contrary, the plaintiffs might lawfully have sued out their alias execution upon the judgment, and enforced the payment for it. To have had the operation contended for by the defendants, the receipt of the note should, at least, have been on account of the débt, and, of course, an implied promise of forbearance ; and this will be found to have been, the fact in all the cases cited for the defendants.
Bull. N. P. 182. —8 D. & E. 451. —1 Esp. Rep. 129.—2 Wils. 353.-5 Johns 72. — 2 Dall. 100.
See 5 D. & E. 515.

Opinion:
By the Court.
The evidence which was rejected at the trial would have bad no tendency to prove the issue on the part of the defendants, had it been given to the jury. Mr. Taylor, as the attorney to the plaintiffs on record, had, without doubt, authority to discharge the defendants from this judgment; but he had no authority to make his clients the bailiffs of the defendants, to collect the note of their debtors, and subject them to an action of account by the defendants.
But, if the plaintiffs themselves had made this receipt upon the execution, instead of Mr. Taylor, it would not have had the operation contended for on the part of the defendants. It does not purport to be received in satisfaction of the debt; but merely to be taken foi collection. Another execution might lawfully have been sued out immediately after this should have been returned ; and this shows sufficiently that the judgment was not satisfied.
Judgment on the verdict.