Case Name: Rawlings's Administrator d. b. n. vs. Duvall
Court: General Court of Maryland
Jurisdiction: Maryland
Decision Date: 1797-05
Citations: 4 H. & McH. 1
Docket Number: 
Parties: Rawlings’s Administrator d. b. n. vs. Duvall.
Judges: 
Reporter: Maryland reports, being a series of the most important law cases argued and determined in the Provincial Court and Court of Appeals of the then province of Maryland, from the year 1700 [i.e. 1658] down to the [end of 1799]
Volume: 4
Pages: 1–3

Head Matter:
GENERAL COURT,
MAY TERM, 1797.
Rawlings’s Administrator d. b. n. vs. Duvall.
F" THIS was an action of debt upon a bond dated the 3d of December, 177T, and conditioned that the defendant would observe and perform the covenants, &c. mentioned in an indenture or assignment of lease, bearing date on the same day, and executed by and between the plaintiff’s intestate and the defendant. The defendant pleaded general performance; and the plaintiff replied, nonperformance, and set forth the indenture, or assignment of a lease, that the sum of 1800 was due for rent, and breach in nonpayment, &c. Rejoinder, payment and issue joined.
The plaintiff at the trial produced and read in evidence to the jury a paper, purporting to be a lease, (mentioned in the condition of the bond upon which this action is brought, and set forth in the plaintiff’s replication,) made on the 3d of December, 1777, between the plaintiff’s intestate and the defendant, and sealed with their seals; whereby the plaintiff’s intestate, for and in consideration of 4001. common currency, to him in hand paid by the defendant, and in consideration of the rents, covenants, &c. therein mentioned, had demised, &c. to the defendant, the plantation leased by a certain David Kerr, to the plaintiff’s intestate, lying, Ac. as also cer= |aju cattle, &c. unto ilte defendant, from the said sd of December, 1777, for and during and until the full end af?g term of four years, be paying therefor yeai’ly and every year unto the plaintiff’s intestate, or his assigns, for and during the two first years of the said term of four years, the sum of 4002. common money,* and for and during the last two years of the said term of four years, the sum of 5002. common money, &c. covenant to perform &c. all the covenants,' &e. mentioned and contained in the said lease From the said David Kerr, and covenanted'to he performed by the plaintiff’s intestate.
The defendant prayed the opinion of the court and their direction to the. jury, that the aforesaid lease or paper was a contract within the contemplation of the act of assembly passed at October session 1780, ch. 5, and that by the ninth section of that act, the sums contracted to be paid by the defendant should and ought to he settled by .the scale of depreciation, and reduced to the actual value of paper money, in gold and silver, at the time the said lease was executed.
The act for calling out of circulation the quota of the state, &c. the ninth section of which declares, « that where any debt, covenant, contract, promise or agreement, unless for gold or silver, or sterling money, or unless the contract was made and intended to prevent the payment of any of the said hills, has been created, or made between the 1st of September, 1776, and the 20th of April, 1779, the debtor, or person bound in such debt, covenant, &c. may at any time hereafter pay or discharge the same in the said new hills of credit, or the bills emitted by the act'of assembly, entitled, “An act to enable the treasurer of the western shore to draw and sell bills of exchange,” &c. by paying in such bills, in the case of money lent, two thirds of the real value at the time of the loan, and in case of contracts upon sales of property, by paying two thirds of the real value of the money at the time the same was made payable, so that the loss of the creditor, and risk of the debtor, may fall as equally on each as thenaturq of;the case will admit” — and where any debt, &c. as above described, entered into on the 20th of April, 1779, and between then and the 12th of June,'1780, and since, for continental currency, or for convention money, or bills issued by the acts under the old government, the debtor, &c. may discharge the same by paying or tendering one dollar of the new hills for every forty dollars due or payable; and if the new hills depreciate, such depreciation to be. accounted for and paid, by the debtor, &c.

Opinion:
Goedsborotjghj Ch. J.
The court are of opinion that the contract between the plaintiff's intestate and the defendant does not come Within the act of assembly of October session 1780, ch. S, and is not operated upon or effected thereby.
The court are also of opinion, that in and by the paper or lease above mentioned, the defendant for all rents remaining due and unpaid, stands liable for, and is hound to the plaintiff in the Same manner, and for the same sums, and for the same kind of money which the plaintiff's intestate in his lifetime, or his ad minisiratrix since his death, or the administrator de hónis non, now tiie present plaintiff, was or would have been liable for to David Kerr, under and by virtue of the lease from the said Kerr to the plaintiff's intestate. The defendant excepted.
Key and Johnson, for the plaintiff.
Mason and Wilm.er, for the defendant.
Chase, 3. concurring, .Duvall, J. having Been concerned is counsel, did not sit.