Dickerson v. Wilkes-Barre & H. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 12 May 1924
• Citation: 124 A. 512
• Parties: DICKERSON v. WILKES-BARRE & H. R. CO. ALLEN v. SAME.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

124 A. 512

DICKERSON

v. WILKES-BARRE & H. R. CO.

ALLEN

v. SAME.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

May 12, 1924.

Separate actions by Edwin S. Dickerson and William L. Allen against the WilkesBarre & Hazelton Railroad Company. Motion to strike answer denied.

Argued March term, 1924, before MINTURN and LLOYD, JJ.

D. Trueman Stackhouse, of Camden, for plaintiff Dickerson.

McDermott, Enright & Carpenter, of Jersey City, for plaintiff Allen.

Katzenbach & Hunt, of Trenton, for defendant.

LLOYD, J. These two cases were submitted together and involve the same question viz., the legal sufficiency of the plea of the statute of limitations. Both plaintiffs are holders of detached coupons formerly annexed to bonds issued by the defendant. The coupons were all due and payable more than six years before the present suits were commenced and are in form, except as to number, as follows:

"($25) Wilkes-Barre & Hazelton Railroad Company, on the 15th day of May, 1915, will pay to bearer at the office at Guaranty Trust Company of New York, in the city of New York, N. Y., twenty-five dollars, United States gold coin of the standard existing May 15, 1901, without deductions for taxes, being six months' interest then due on its five per cent. gold bond No. 757.

"($25) N. C. Yost, Treasurer. (28)"

The statute of limitations being pleaded, it is contended by the defendants that, the right of action accruing more than six years before suit, the plaintiff is barred from recovery.

The coupon is a simple contract wherein the defendant by its treasurer promises to pay a certain sum of money at a certain time and place therein named. If it stood alone and wholly disconnected from any other obligation, the holder would, by virtue of the statute of limitations, be obliged to commence his action within the statutory period of six years. It is contended, however, that the provision of the statute applicable to bonds applies, and that the limitation is 16 years because of the fact that the coupon was when executed attached to a bond under seal. The relation of the coupon to a negotiable bond has been a fruitful source of consideration in the courts. The general trend of authority has been to hold that the detached coupon when negotiable in form is free from the conditions and limitations contained in the bond itself (9 Cor. Jur. 50); and in this state that they form a distinct and independent contract (Jones Co. v. Guttenberg. 66 N. J. Law, 666, 51 Atl. 274; Mack v. American Tel....