Oliver v. Error

• Citation: 36 Ga. 552
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court
• Decision Date: 31 December 1867
• Parties: SHELTON OLIVER and RICHARD W. WOOTTEN, executors, &c, plaintiffs in error. v. L. C. COLEMAN et al„ defendant in error.

36 Ga. 552

SHELTON OLIVER and RICHARD W. WOOTTEN, executors, &c, plaintiffs in error. v. L. C. COLEMAN et al„ defendant in error.

Supreme Court of the State of Georgia

(Milledgeville, Dec. Term, 1867.)

Motion for new trial. (Scaling Ordinance.) Decided by Judge William M. Reese. Lincoln Superior Court. October Term, 1867.

On the third day of December, 1862, L. C. Coleman, Anthony Harmon and E. J. Lyon made two single bills or bonds, payable to "Shelton Oliver and Richard W. Wootten, executors of Richard R. Wimpey, deceased, or bearer, " one *for $158, and the other for $290, and due twelve months after date. The payee sued the makers thereon, and the defence was that the notes were within the Scaling Ordinance of 1865, and that plaintiffs ought not to recover more than the value of so much Confederate currency at the maturity of the notes.

At the trial, the plaintiff read in evidence the bonds and closed.

The evidence for defendants was as follows:

E. J. Lyon, one of the defendants, sworn, said: the largest note was for cattle, the other was for a horse bought at the sale of the perishable property of the deceased by the executors (plaintiffs), at public outcry, on deceased\'s plantation in Lincoln County, Georgia, at the date of the notes. The terms of the sale were, cash for all sums under twenty dollars, for larger sums, notes with good security due twelve months after date, with interest from date if not punctually paid.

Nothing was said at the time about the currency in which the notes were to be paid. [The common currency of the country at that time was Confederate money. Contracts were then commonly understood to be in Confederate money when no other money was specified.]

The cattle and horses were bought for the prices then customary in Confederate money.

There were fifteen or twenty cattle. The prices were three or four times the prices of such property in specie before the war. Nothing passed with the executors about the sort of money in which the notes were payable. I gave the money to Mr. Sale to pay the notes for me.

Peyton W. Sale testified: that Lyon gave him the amount of the notes in Confederate money to pay the plaintiffs, shortly before the notes were due; he went to Oliver's to pay it in time, he thought it was a few days before the notes were due; Oliver was not at home. Soon after the maturity of the notes, Sale saw Wootten and offered him the money, he declined it, saying they could not receive it because the legatees would not; witness was at the sale and the *property sold for prices then usual in Confederate currency.

Z. S. Willingham testified: that at the close of the sale it was announced, that at a discount of five per cent, would be allowed to purchasers who would pay cash, but that "bee-hive money" would not be taken.

It was agreed by counsel that specie was three for one in Confederate money at the date of the sale, and twenty for one at the maturity of the notes, and at the trial was at a premium of forty per cent, in greenbacks.

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