Lacompte v. Seargent

• Decision Date: 31 May 1842
• Citation: 7 Mo. 351
• Parties: LACOMPTE v. SEARGENT.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

7 Mo. 351

LACOMPTE

v.SEARGENT.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

May Term, 1842.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF STE. GENEVIEVE COUNTY.

SCOTT & ZEIGLER, for Appellant.

COLE, for Appellee.

TOMPKINS, J.

Ichabod Seargent sued Eloy Lacompte and Joseph Bogy in the Circuit Court of Ste. Genevieve county, and obtained judgment against them. They appealed from that judgment, and Bogy dying in the meantime, Lacompte, the surviving partner, prosecutes the appeal. The suit was founded on a note, in these words, viz: “Received of Mr. Ebenezer Dickey, administrator of the estate of Antoine Simmino, deceased, seven hundred dollars, which we will pay him at any time, clear of interest.

(Signed)

BOGY & LACOMPTE.”

On which note or receipt (as it is called), were indorsements, made by Dickey, of payments to the amount of five hundred and forty-six dollars and fifty-nine cents. The Circuit Court gave judgment for one hundred and sixty-four dollars and forty-one cents, the balance due in the note after deducting the credits indorsed. The defendants in the Circuit Court offered in evidence certain orders made by the said Dickey to them to pay money, which it was admitted they had paid; and they proved also, that said Dickey had purchased from them certain articles of merchandise after the deposit of said sum of money. And it was admitted that the said Dickey had no account with them before said deposit of money, and that all the moneys proved to be paid by them, were paid while Dickey was administrator, and also that the goods were purchased while he was administrator as aforesaid. And on the part of the defendants, it was admitted, that the said Seargent was administrator de bonis non, of the said Antoine Simmino, in the place of said Dickey. These facts being admitted to be proved, the Circuit Court rejected the evidence of moneys paid, and also of the goods purchased by Dickey from the defendants below, while he was administrator as aforesaid.

No principle of law is more generally acknowledged, than that the executor or administrator is, for every purpose, the owner of the moneys of his intestate which have come to his hands. Accordingly a count, on a promise made by a defendant, as administrator, to pay money received by him as such, to the plaintiff's use, cannot be joined with another count on promises made by the intestate. See Farr and others v. Newman et al. 4 Durnford and East, 347. The money, then, for which the note here sued on was given, was the money of Ebenezer Dickey...