Court Opinion

ID: 9831443
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:06:42.498689+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:34.822812
License: Public Domain

*1109On Motion for Rehearing.
 The holding in our original opinion that appellant’s answer in the original suit, referred to in our opinion, pleading as a set-off to appellee’s demands its liability for the payment of the order for $751.77, given by appellee in favor of J. P. Ross, was a sufficient acknowledgment of his debt to Ross to suspend the running of the statute of limitation against Ross, is unsound and cannot sustain our holding that appellee’s suit upon said order was not barred when -this suit was filed. It is well settled by our decisions that an acknowledgment of a debt to be sufficient to suspend the statute of limitation must be made to or for the benefit of the party to whom the debt is due. City of Houston v. Jankowiskie, 76 Tex. 370, 13 S. W. 269, 18 Am. St. Rep. 57; Holland v. Shannon (Tex. Civ. App.) 84 S. W. 854. We are, however; still of the opinion plaintiff’s suit on this order was not barred. By the terms of appellant’s acceptance of the order it was not payable until appellant had funds in his hands belonging to appellee, in excess of appellee’s indebtedness to him; sufficient to pay the order. The record shows that appellant had at all times denied that he had such funds with which to pay the order. It is true that in the original suit it was adjudged that appellee had such funds January 29, 1914, but appellant appealed from that judgment, and it did not become final until the refusal of a writ of error by our Supreme Court. Ross had no means of ascertaining when funds of appellee came into the hands of appellant. He was not a party to the original suit, and it is not shown that he knew of any facts which would justify him in concluding that appellant’s liability on the order had. matured. Under these circumstances, we do not think he was required to bring suit, thereon until it was finally determined that appellant’s obligation had matured. '
We think the following proposition from appellee’s brief is a sufficient answer to appellant’s plea of limitation against the order:
“When one promises to pay money to a third party out of ‘any sums of money which might be owing’ by such one to another, and actively denies that any fund has come into existence from which the payment has been promised, carrying such denial through a complicated and prolonged litigation, all the while asserting his willingness to make payment whenever it should be determined that there existed funds out of which payment should be made; the third party is justified in awaiting the determination of the existence of the fund before demanding payment, and limitation should not begin to run against his action therefor until by the judgment he is informed of the existence of his cause of action which had theretofore been, in effect, concealed from him by the affirmative action of his contingent debtor.”
After giving the motion for rehearing due consideration, we feel constrained to adhere to our former conclusions upon the questions presented by this appeal, and overrule the motion.