United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Downey v. Hicks, 55 U.S. 14 How. 240 240 (1852)

Downey v. Hicks

55 U.S. (14 How.) 240

Syllabus

Where the declaration, in an action of assumpsit, contained the following counts, 1. on a promissory note; 2. indebitatus assumpsit for the hire of slaves; 3. an account stated; 4. quantum valebat for the services of slaves; 5. work and labor, goods sold and delivered and money lent and advanced; 6. money had and received; 7. an account stated; 8. a special agreement for the hire of slaves, and the defendant pleaded 1. the general issue; 2. statute of limitations; 3. payment, and the jury found a verdict for "the defendant upon the issue joined as to the within note of four hundred and fifty-six dollars, and the within account", this verdict, although informal, was sufficient to authorize to enter a general judgment for the defendant.

An objection cannot be made in this Court to a release under which a witness was sworn unless the objection was made in the court below and an exception taken.

Where a certificate of deposit in a bank, payable at a future day, was handed over by a debtor to his creditor, it was no payment unless there was an express agreement on the part of the creditor to receive it as such, and the question whether there was or was not such an agreement was one of fact to be decided by the jury.

The bank being insolvent when the certificate of deposit became due, there was no ground for imputing negligence in the collection of the debt by the holder, as no loss occurred to the original debtor.

If the evidence showed that after the maturity of the certificate, the original debtor admitted his liability to make it good, the jury should have been instructed that this evidence conduced to prove that the certificate was not taken in payment.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE TANEY did not sit in this cause.

There were three bills of exceptions taken upon the trial in the circuit court, which extended over more than one hundred pages of the printed record. The last one included the whole of the evidence. The substance of the case is given in the opinion of the Court, to which the reporter refers the reader.