Lovett v. Lessler

• Decision Date: 05 February 1926
• Citation: 132 A. 77
• Parties: LOVETT et al. v. LESSLER et al.
• Court: New Jersey Court of Chancery

132 A. 77

LOVETT et al.

v. LESSLER et al.

Court of Chancery of New Jersey.

Feb. 5, 1926.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Suit by Lester C. Lovett and another against Montague Lessler and others to foreclose a mortgage. On exceptions of defendant Denis Maloney to a master's report. Exceptions overruled.

Aaron A. Melniker, of Bayonne, for exceptant.

Wilson & Smock, of Red Bank, opposed.

BERRY, V. C. The only question here presented is whether the complainant is entitled to recover interest on his mortgage which accrued more than six years prior to the commencement of this suit. The question is raised by the defendant Denis Maloney, a subsequent incumbrancer, the payment of whose claim depends upon whether or not interest accruing more than six years before commencement of the suit is allowed. The master reported the full amount of the principal of the mortgage, together with interest, from its date in 1911, due the complainant. This interest, at 5 per cent., the rate specified in the mortgage, would amount to approximately $2,900. If the defendant's contention is correct, the amount of interest collectable would amount to approximately $1,200; the difference is about equal to the amount of the exceptant's lien.

The exceptant claims that, where interest is payable annually, so much of the interest as accrued more than the statutory period before the action was brought is barred, notwithstanding the principal debt may not be barred, citing 33 Corpus Juris, p. 257; May v. Ball, 108 Ky. 180, 56 S. W. 7; Dearborn v. Parks, 5 Me. 81, 17 Am. Dec. 206; Heburn v. Reynolds, 73 Misc. Rep. 73, 132 N. Y. S. 460; Quackenbush v. Mapes, 54 Misc. Rep. 124, 105 N. Y. S. 654. He also claims that the New Jersey decisions, in which it has been held that unpaid coupons detached from the bonds which they accompanied are barred in six years by the statute, are by analogy authority for this same proposition.

I cannot agree with the exceptant in this contention. Whatever may be the rule in other jurisdictions, the rule in this state is that interest is not barred until the principal debt is barred. There is an exception to this rule in the case of bonds to which interest coupons are attached, and it has been held in a number of eases in this state that such coupons, when detached, form a separate and distinct obligation from the bond to which they were formerly attached, that when detached they do not partake of the nature of the bond, that they are merely promises to pay not under seal, and that they are therefore barred in six years; but these cases have no...