United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Dooley v. Smith, 80 U.S. 13 Wall. 604 604 (1871)

Dooley v. Smith

80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 604

Syllabus

1. A plea which states that the sum due on a promissory note is a certain amount, on a certain day, and avers a tender on that day of the sum due, in legal tender notes of the United States, is a good plea of tender.

2. In a suit on such note, an order of court made by consent that the money might be withdrawn from court without prejudice to the validity of the tender cannot be supposed to be the reason why the court held the plea bad on demurrer.

3. As the record in this case showed no other reason why the Court of Appeals of Kentucky sustained a demurrer to the plea than that it was made in legal tender notes of the United States, it sufficiently appeared that the question of the validity of these notes as a tender was made and decided in the negative.

4. This Court therefore has jurisdiction to review the judgment, and though the note sued on was made before the passage of the legal tender statutes by Congress, held that the tender was a valid tender, and that the judgment of the court below must be reversed.

Motion by Mr. W. H. Wadsworth, for the defendant in error (Mr. G. Davis, opposing), to dismiss a writ of error to the Court of Appeals of the state of Kentucky, taken on the assumption that the case came within that provision of the

Page 80 U. S. 605

25th section of the Judiciary Act, which, as is known, gives this Court a right to review the decisions of the highest state court whenever there is drawn in question there the validity of a statute of the United States and the decision is against its validity.

The further statement of the case, as also an indication of the points raised by counsel, is made by