Court Opinion

ID: 6411943
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-06-25 11:53:21.021657+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:51:24.193747
License: Public Domain

Dewey, J.
The rule of law which was applied to the present case by the superior court is too well settled to be open to all those considerations which might be urged if it were a new question. That the acceptance of a less sum in money than is actually due cannot be a satisfaction, and will not operate to extinguish the whole debt, although agreed by the creditor to be received upon that condition, is, as we understand, a correct exposition of the law on the subject. In Brooks v. White, 2 Met. 283, it was so assumed and stated upon the authority of the adjudicated cases there cited and commented upon. Although apparently unjust to refuse to give effect to a discharge, or accord and satisfaction, freely and voluntarily made *344upon the payment of a less sum than was actually due, yet it stands upon the same principle upon which we deny the enforcement of a promise to pay money where such promise has been freely and deliberately made, but without any legal consideration. This would be so, although the contract had all the formalities of a promissory note acknowledging value received. But while the rule has prevailed that the payment of a smaller sum cannot be pleaded as a satisfaction for a larger, the courts have been disposed to confine its operation to cases fully within the principle of want of consideration. Hence, if payment be in a manner collateral to the original obligation, as if it be paid before the day, or be made by a stranger out of his money, or by the note of a third person, though a smaller sum is paid than the amount of the debt, such sum, thus received in discharge of the whole demand, is a valid discharge of the whole.
If any exception of this character exists in the present case, it should avail the defendant; otherwise, the general rule must be applied here. Giving a receipt in full of all demands is not conclusive evidence of actual payment of such demands; as such receipts are always open to explanation, and may be controlled by oral evidence.
The agreement of the plaintiff, upon which the defendant relies to sustain the defence of accord and satisfaction, was simply an agreement “ that if the defendant, who was then poor and unable to pay, would raise and pay the plaintiff the sum of twenty dollars, he would receive the same in full satisfaction of the judgment.” This was merely an agreement to accept twenty dollars in full of a judgment for a much larger sum. It was exactly the case of the acceptance of a less sum of money than was actually due. The payment in bank bills was, as treated by the parties, a payment in cash, and must so be held. Phillips v. Blake, 1 Met. 158. It was no part of the agreement made by the plaintiff, that if a, stranger would lend the defendant twenty dollars, he would receive that sum in full of the judgment. Nor is there anything in the case to show that the plaintiff knew that any portion of the money had been borrowed of a third person. The defendant was “ to raise ” the *345twenty dollars. But this implied, nothing more than that he proposed to collect it, or obtain it from his own funds. He was unable to pay the whole debt, but that does not import an inability to pay twenty dollars or raise that sum unon his own resources. Exceptions overruled.