Court Opinion

ID: 9526138
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:12:58.705703+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:18:34.936563
License: Public Domain

Dissent
Landis, J.
I regret I must dissent from the majority opinion.
The issue in this case is whether an I.O.U.1 is a contract in writing so as to be governed by the ten year statute of limitations or whether it is a contract not in writing governed by the six year statute of limitations.
This subject is dealt with in a recent annotation appearing in 3 A. L. R. 2d 809, Limitations — Contract in Writing, upon the subject of “What constitutes a contract in writing within statute of limitations.” The annotation states at p. 825, §17, “Accounts stated and acknowledgments of indebtedness”:
“A written account stated or a written acknowledgment of indebtedness may constitute a contract in writing with respect to the statute of limitations.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Attention is also directed to 34 Am. Jur., Limitation of Actions, §80, p. 71, under “What Constitutes Written Contract” wherein it is stated:
“The broad and comprehensive language of a statute of limitations providing that an action upon a writing for the payment of money can be commenced only within a prescribed period after the cause of action shall have accrued embraces all kinds of written instruments, without regard to their form or phraseology, which imply a promise or agreement to pay money. ...” (Emphasis supplied.)
*300The case of Patterson v. Chapman (1918), 179 Cal. 203, 205, 176 Pac. 37, 2 A. L. R. 1467, which involved the sufficiency of an instrument to establish a valid contract for the payment of money, stated:
“ . . . Any memorandum in writing, however, regardless of its form, and whether payable in money or specific property, whereby a debt is acknowledged by one as owing to another to whom the memorandum is delivered is sufficient to create such obligation. ‘Any words which prove a man to be a debtor will charge him with the payment of the money.’ (Cover v. Stem, 67 Md. 449, [1 Am. St. Rep. 406, 10 Atl. 231].) Hence, conceding the document in question is not a negotiable instrument, draft, check, or bill of exchange as claimed by respondent, the want of such character is immaterial if terms are employed therein which at the time of its execution created a debitum in praesenti. (Banker v. Coons, 40 App. Div. 572, [58 N. Y. Supp. 47] ; Robbins v. Robbins’ Estate, 175 Mo. App. 609, [158 S. W. 400] ; Kirkpatrick v. Pyle, supra.)
“It is true the instrument contains no express promise to pay, but where the existence of an indebtedness based upon consideration is acknowledged, the law implies a promise to pay it (Ward v. Bush, 59 N. J. Eq. 144, [45 Atl. 534],. . . .”
Attention is further directed to the California case of O’Brien v. King (1917), 174 Cal. 769, 774, 164 Pac. 631, 633, which quotes approvingly from the Indiana case of Long, Executrix v. Straus et al. (1886), 107 Ind. 94, 99, 6 N. E. 123, 7 N. E. 76.3, 57 Am. Rep. 87, attempted to be distinguished in the majority opinion of this Court in the case at bar, and which it will be recalled involved the following instrument:
“Received of Joseph S. Long sixteen hundred dollars, on deposit, in National currency.
STRAUS BROS.
“LIGONIER, April 27th, 1865.”
The California Court states as to the Indiana case (p. 774 of 174 Cal., p. 633 of 164 Pac.) :
*301“ . . . The distinction which we have tried to point out is well stated in Long v. Straus, 107 Ind. 94, [57 Am. Rep. 87, 6 N. E. 123, 7 N. E. 763], where the court, upon rehearing, discussed the question exhaustively. The following language from the opinion in that case is in point here:
“ ‘ . . . An express written contract contains the only competent evidence of the agreement of the parties. . . . But this written contract is to be given legal effect, and to give it effect the courts must consider it as embodying all the legal obligations implied from its language. These obligations, we repeat, are part of the written contract. The law imported into the contract does not create an independent agreement, but makes the instrument express the full agreement of the parties. . . . All contracts have imported into them legal principles which can no more be varied by parol evidence than the strongest and clearest express stipulations. . . . The authorities all agree that the regular indorsement of a promissory note is as perfect a contract as though the liability which the law implies were written out in full. . . . Into the contract before us the law enters and makes it an agreement to repay the money received on deposit. . . . Our conclusion reaches further than that there is an implied promise to pay the depositor his money, for it goes to the extent of affirming that his promise is created by law as an element of the contract, and as such enters into and forms part of the written agreement. We do not regard the promise as an independent one, existing outside of the written contract, but as a promise forming one of the terms of the contract.’ ” (Emphasis supplied.)
The majority opinion in the case at bar says that the I.O.U. sued on was based upon a verbal agreement between the parties and that this leaves the court with a contract partly in writing and partly oral, which must be considered oral.
*302However, this line of reasoning is fallacious as the important thing is that the I.O.U. did not depend for its validity upon any verbal agreement whatever, as the acknowledgment of indebtedness under the authorities implies in law, without any further evidence, a promise to pay. This is imported in the contract as a legal principle and does not create an independent agreement. All contracts have imported into them legal principles which cannot be varied by parol. Unless we are to disapprove prior decisions of this state and other jurisdictions, we must conclude the I.O.U. was sufficient to satisfy the statute of limitations with regard to a written contract for the payment of money.
The majority opinion has also attempted to make a distinction between an acknowledgment in writing of a debt and a contract in writing. No cases have been cited in support thereof. As an acknowledgment of debt imports in law a promise to pay, such an acknowledgment in writing would necessarily constitute a written contract. The majority’s attempted distinction in this case is therefore a distinction without a difference.
The two Indiana cases of Long, Executrix v. Straus et al. (1886), supra, 107 Ind. 94, 99, 6 N. E. 123, 7 N. E. 763, 57 Am. Rep. 87, and Kraft v. Thomas, Executor (1890), 123 Ind. 513, 24 N. E. 346, 18 A. S. 345, which involved instruments with no acknowledgment of indebtedness unless it can be implied from the ambiguous language thereof, were obviously weaker cases than the one before us and yet were held to be sufficient to satisfy the ten year statute.
The I.O.U. in the case at bar of course was not a promissory note or a negotiable instrument under the Uniform Negotiable Instruments Law,2 but a nonnegotiable instrument can indeed be a written contract for the payment of money.
*303The trial court properly held the instrument was a contract in writing governed by the ten year statute and the result reached by the Appellate Court was correct and the judgment of the lower court should be affirmed.
Note. — Reported in 205 N. E. 2d 543.

. The I.O.U. was as follows:
“8-13-47
“I owe B. E. Rainier Seven Hundred & Fifty ($750.00) of this date.
Harley Michael.”

. Acts 1913, ch. 63, §184, p. 120, Burns’ §19-1701 (1950 Repl.).