Laforge v. Jayne

• Decision Date: 26 December 1848
• Citation: 9 Pa. 410
• Parties: LAFORGE <I>v.</I> JAYNE.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 410

9 Pa. 410

LAFORGE v. JAYNE.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

December 19, 1848.

December 26, 1848.

Dec. 19.

IN error from the Common Pleas of Monroe.

Reeder, for plaintiff in error.—There is a distinction between promises to pay money and promises to deliver chattels, or do any collateral act on demand. On the former there is a conflict of authorities: 2 Stark. on Ev. 478, Ry. & Mo. 388, holding that a demand being necessary to give an action, the statute runs from thence. So in the case of a bond: Byl. on Bills, 191, n. s. But all the authorities concur where the promise is for other things than money: 2 Saund. Pl. and Ev. 645; 2 Saund. 63, n. k.; Bull. N. P. 151; 1 Lev. 48; 12 Mod. 444; 6 W. 381; 2 Bailey, 51; 9 Pick. 488. In the present case the promise was not to pay money, but to return certain chattels. Even had they been banknotes they would not be money: 4 W. 400.

Porter, contrà.—The promise was to pay in the depreciated currency, which had been borrowed, and all such promises are immediately due, and within the act from their date: 2 Saund. 63, b.; 1 Sel. N. P. 118. The demand does not constitute a condition precedent, but merely imports that it is presently due: Byles, 191. But supposing this to be a promise to deliver specific chattels, then a demand must be made within a reasonable time, otherwise it will be presumed to have been made and refused, as in 1 Taunt. 572, the case of consignor and factor. 10 Pick. 112, is express to the point, that the right to demand is barred by the statute. As to the promise, it was not sufficient within our decisions. There was no admission of a debt, but of a right to an account, and even then a mere promise to pay when able.

Reply.—If the case was to turn on the presumption of a demand more than six years before action brought, or on presumption of payment, the case should have been submitted to a jury.

Dec. 26. COULTER, J.

The writing or note on which the suit is founded, bears date the 7th day of January, 1824, and the suit was instituted on the 14th day of February, 1843, nineteen years after the instrument was executed. The statute of limitations, which was pleaded by the defendant, is of course a bar, unless there is something in the terms of the contract, or some acknowledgment by the defendant was sufficient to rescue the case from its operation.

It was contended by the plaintiff below, who is plaintiff in error, that it was an engagement to deliver personal property (Pike county checks, as they are called), on demand, and that, therefore, the statute did not run until six years after demand made by plaintiff, which was not proved to have been made until the 3d of May, 1838. If the note was for the payment of money, and ought to be so construed, the statute took effect from its date; it being well settled that the statute in such case runs from the date, and not from the demand. But if the construction of the contract ought to be as the plaintiff contends, the statute is nevertheless a bar: for although there is a distinction in the books, between a promise to pay money, and a collateral promise to deliver chattels, or to perform any service on demand, yet it is held that in the latter case the demand must be made in a reasonable time; otherwise such a promise might be kept on foot indefinitely at the will of the promisor; and even the legal presumption of payment in twenty years, with which the law, for the sake of quietude and repose in old transactions, obliterates even bonds, judgments, and mortgages, would not extinguish a parol contract.

It was ruled in the case of Codman v. Rogers, 10 Pick. 112, that although an action will not lie in some cases without a previous demand, and that in such cases the statute did not run until demand, that nevertheless the demand ought to be made in a reasonable time, and when no cause for the delay is shown, it ought to be made within...