General Supply Co. v. Toccoa Plumbing Co.

• Decision Date: 17 May 1912
• Citation: 75 S.E. 135,138 Ga. 219
• Parties: GENERAL SUPPLY CO. v. TOCCOA PLUMBING CO. et al.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

75 S.E. 135

138 Ga. 219

GENERAL SUPPLY CO. v. TOCCOA PLUMBING CO. et al.

Supreme Court of Georgia

May 17, 1912

Syllabus by the Court.

On the trial of this case, which was a suit upon an open account, the question for determination was what amount, if any, was due the plaintiff after allowing the defendant proper credits upon the account for certain articles of merchandise which had been returned, and for the amounts collected, or which, in the exercise of due diligence, should have been collected, by the plaintiff upon an open account against a debtor of the defendant, which the latter had transferred to the plaintiff as collateral security; and it was error for the court, upon the trial of the case, to permit one of the defendants, over objections duly made, to testify that "he [the manager of the plaintiff corporation] stated that he [the manager] had his accounts insured, and that this suit he had brought was just a matter of form, which he had to go through with before he could collect his insurance; that his insurance covered a range of $1,000. I never heard of credit insurance before. There may be such a thing. It is new to me." This evidence was entirely irrelevant, and probably prejudicial to the plaintiff.

Where a debtor transfers to his creditors an open account, which the former holds against one of his debtors, as collateral security for the payment of an open account, the transferee is chargeable, not with the amount due on the open account thus transferred, but with such an amount as he may have collected, in the absence of proof that he could have collected more by the exercise of ordinary care and diligence.

Error from Superior Court, Elbert County; D. W. Meadow, Judge.

Action by the General Supply Company against the Toccoa Plumbing Company and others. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff brings error. Reversed.

Z. B. Rogers, of Elberton, and B. F. Davis, of Toccoa, for plaintiff in error.

C. P. Harris, of Elberton, for defendants in error.

BECK, J.

Judgment reversed. All the Justices concur.