Crane v. Brooks
| Decision Date | 18 October 1905 |
| Citation | 75 N.E. 710,189 Mass. 228 |
| Parties | CRANE v. BROOKS et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Wm T. Way, for appellant.
Albert P. Worthen, for appellee.
This is an appeal by the defendant Brooks from a final decree in favor of the plaintiff upon the defendant's cross-bill in which he claimed sum due upon an account. The only questions raised are upon the defendant's exceptions to the master's report, numbered 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, and 16 all his other exceptions having been waived. These exceptions were founded on contentions of the defendant as follows: First, that the finding that the matters involved in the account were settled long ago, and that there is nothing due the defendant upon them, is erroneous; secondly, that a special error, which entered into the finding, is the master's failure to allow interest on the items of the account; and, thirdly, that there was error in considering the inventories of the estates of the persons from whose administrators Brooks derived his title to the acount, in each of which inventories there is no reference to the existence of such an account.
The exceptions all relate to a finding of by assignment. The transactions on which the evidence, this finding must stand unless upon the face of the report it is inconsistent with other findings and is plainly wrong. Richards v. Todd, 127 Mass. 167-172. The account grew out of transactions between the firm of Shedd & Crane, of which the plaintiff was a member, and two other firms which were associated in their dealings, to whose rights the defendant Brooks has succeeded by assighment. The transactions on which the defendant rests his claim were closed at some time in the year 1892, and there was evidence tending to show that the balance due the intestates of the defendant's assignors in March, 1893, was $27,989.21. Payments in cash were made by the plaintiff, and collaterals, pledged by him as security for this debt, were sold or appropriated by these creditors, to an amount, as we infer from the findings, considerably in excess of this sum. A part of this was from coupons collected by the creditors for several years upon bonds of the plaintiff, whose face value was $25,000, which bonds were afterwards disposed of at different times, and the proceeds applied to the payment of this account. It did not appear exactly what the amount received from the coupons was, nor what was the market value of the second lot of the bonds, which were taken and appropriated by the intestates of the defendant's assignors to the payment of this account. These collections and appropriations were with the plaintiff's consent. The assignment of this account was procured by Brooks on February 6, 1902. In the report the master says: 'It is evident to me that the parties considered the account as settled long before the assignment thereof to Brooks, and that it was in fact settled in the manner indicated above, and I so find.' The 'manner indicated above' was by the receipt of money, and of property taken as money, by the persons to whom the account was due. While the precise amount so received does not appear, the fair inference from the findings is that it was much more than the amount of the account as it was made up in...
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