Bowie v. Henderson
Decision Date | 01 February 1821 |
Citation | 19 U.S. 514,5 L.Ed. 319,6 Wheat. 514 |
Parties | BOWIE v. HENDERSON et al |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
APPEAL from the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia.
This suit was instituted by the appellant against the respondents, on the Chancery side of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, for the county of Alexandria, under the local law giving a process in Chancery in the nature of a foreign attachment.
The bill charged a debt due on bills of exchange, from the defendant, Henderson, to the complainant; that the debtor was an absentee; that he had funds in the hands of the defendant Auld; and prayed a condemnation of those funds, to answer the complainant's demand. The defendant, Henderson, pleaded the statute of limitations, non assumpsit infra quinque annos. To this plea the complainant filed the following replication: And the said W. Bowie saith, that he ought not to be precluded from having and maintaining his bill aforesaid, by any thing alleged by the defendant, Henderson, in his plea aforesaid; because he saith, that the said A. Henderson, on the 8th of May, 1806, in the county of Alexandria, before N. F., one of the judges of the. District of Columbia, did take the benefit of the act for the relief of insolvent debtors within the District of Columbia, and did then and there give a schedule of his estate, and a list of his creditors; and in the said list of his creditors so given in, he, the said Henderson, did state, that the said complainant was a creditor of his to the amount of $4,586 39 cents—which said list of creditors so given in, he, the said Henderson, did state, was entered of record in the clerk's office of the Court of the county of Alexandria, as by reference to the records of the said Court will fully and at large appear, and which said debt so given in, is the debt for which the complainant has instituted his suit aforesaid. And the said complainant saith, that the moneys and effects which the said complainant seeks, in his bill aforesaid, to subject to the payment of his debt aforesaid, were obtained and acquired by the said defendant, Henderson, long subsequent to his taking the oath of insolvency aforesaid. And the said complainant saith, that as soon as he, the said complainant, obtained any knowledge of the said defendant, Henderson, having obtained the funds aforesaid, and within the period of six months after he obtained a knowledge thereof, he, the said complainant, did institute his aforesaid bill in Chancery, to subject the funds to the payment of his said debt, all which, &c. The defendant demurred to this replication, and the Court below, on hearing, adjudged the demurrer good.
The question in this case turned upon the construction of the third section of the act of Congress, for the relief of insolvent debtors within the District of Columbia, passed March 3d, 1803, which is in these words:
'And be it further enacted, That upon the petitioning debtor's executing a deed or deeds to the said trustee, conveying all his property, real, personal, and mixed, and all his claims, rights, and credits, agreeably to the oath or affirmation of the said debtor, and on delivering all his said property which he shall have in his...
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Martindale Mortg. Co. v. Crow
...scheduling of a liability a promise to pay same is not to be inferred. We have carefully read and considered the case of Bowie v. Henderson, 6 Wheat. 514, 5 L.Ed. 319. The Supreme Court of the United States was there dealing with the law of the District of Columbia, a law which did not give......
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James Moore, Defendant Below, Now Plaintiff In Error v. the President, Directors and Company of the Bank of Columbia, Defendants In Error
...a specific sum would not remove the bar without any promise to pay. On the contrary, there is a clear intimation in the case of Bowie and Henderson, 6 Wheat. 514, that it In this case there is an unequivocal acknowledgement that five hundred is owing from the plaintiff to the bank. Five hun......
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