Court Opinion

ID: 9543587
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:46:51.290845+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:38.966458
License: Public Domain

ROSSMAN, J.,
concurring in part; dissenting in part.
I dissent from the majority’s analysis of plaintiffs “account stated” claim.
The statement of an account, or an “account stated,” is an agreement to pay a fixed amount that is due as a result of previous transactions in which a debtor-creditor relationship was created. See EIMCO-BSP Ser. v. Valley Inland Pac. Constructors, 626 F2d 669, 671 (9th Cir 1980). When the parties themselves agree upon a sum that the debtor owes and promises to pay to the creditor, that promise creates an independent contract between the parties; the new contract is enforceable in its own right, “even though the antecedent debt has been barred by [the] statute of limitations or has been discharged in bankruptcy.” Corbin on Contracts § 1304, 237 (1962 & 1991 Supp); see also Meridinal Co. v. Moeck, 121 Or 133, 253 P 525 (1927).
Plaintiff alleges that the parties stated an account in February, 1984. This action was commenced in December, 1989. The four-year Statute of Limitations that applies to contracts for the sale of goods,.ORS 72.7250, is inapplicable to plaintiff’s account stated claim, because the claim is based on a new and separate contract that was created when defendants acknowledged their indebtedness to plaintiff. It is therefore subject to the six-year limitation in ORS 12.080(1). Because the account stated claim was timely filed within that period, I must dissent.