Court Opinion

ID: 6407427
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-06-25 11:50:03.322393+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:51:14.039922
License: Public Domain

Wilde J.
delivered the opinion of the Court. There was no express proof, that the note to the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company was paid at the request of the defendant ; but the plaintiff relied on the promise of the defendant to pay him, made subsequently to the discharge of the mortgage. This promise, we think, is equivalent to a previous request. It comes within the well established principle, that the subsequent ratification of an act done by a voluntary agent of another, without authority from him, is equivalent to a previous authority. The law, it is true, will not allow a party to maintain an action for money paid to discharge the debt of another without his consent; for to allow this, would subject every debtor to the power of those who might be disposed to injure him, and who might harass him with suits, and burden him with costs, in the most unreasonable and oppressive manner. But if the debtor assents to the payment, the reason of the law fails ; and whether the consent be given before or after the pay ment is, as it seems to us, immaterial. Yelv. (Metcalf’s ed.) 42, note. We have no doubt, therefore, that the defendant’s promise is valid ; first, because his ratification of the payment is equivalent to a previous request to pay, and the objection, that the consideration was past, cannot be maintained ; and secondly, because the case shows an equitable consideration, which is sufficient to sustain an express promise. Where a man is under a moral obligation to pay a debt, which cannot be enforced by a court of law or equity, yet if he promises to pay he will be bound. As where a man promises to pay a just debt, the recovery of which is barred by the statute of limitations ; or if a minor contracts a debt, but not for necessaries, and after he comes of age, promises to pay it; or if a debtor promises the assignee of a chose in action to pay him. In all such cases and many others, the party will be bound by his promise, although before the promise the other party had no remedy either in law or equity. Hawkes v. Saunders, Cowper, 290.
‘There is another ground on which this action might be maintained, if there had been no express promise. The payment *394of the mortgage debt by the plaintiff was not merely voluntary. He was bound to pay the debt in order to secure his equitable interest in the estate. He was placed in this situation by the neglect of the defendant to pay the debt due to his creditor, who levied his execution on the equity of redemption. Under these circumstances no previous request to pay the debt, or subsequent ratification by the defendant, was required. Child v. Morley, 8 T. R. 610.
It was contended by the defendant’s counsel, at the trial, that the operation of the payment of the mortgage was sufficient, under the circumstances, to constitute the plaintiff the assignee thereof, and to convey to him all the right of the original mortgagee. This right, we think, is sustained by the Revised Stat. c. 73, § 34, 35. But it by no means follows, that the plaintiff has not a double remedy, as the mortgagee had. If the payment operated as an equitable assignment of the mortgage, it would have the same operation as to the note. If the plaintiff had a right to hold the mortgaged estate until the defendant paid the debt, then most clearly the defendant’s promise is binding and obligatory, although the plaintiff had another security.

Default entered.