Dobson vs. Dickson, administrator

Supreme Court of Georgia1879-02

62 Ga. 639

Summary · law.co

Holding. The court affirmed the judgment, holding that the plaintiff failed to establish a new promise by the debtor after the applicable statutory deadline, and the note was therefore barred by the act of 1869 and the statute of limitations.

The plaintiff sought to collect on a promissory note against the defendant administrator of a deceased debtor's estate. The note on its face was barred by an 1869 statute, and the plaintiff could only proceed if he could establish a new promise made by the debtor after June 1, 1865. The plaintiff's own testimony regarding what the debtor said or wrote was excluded because he had acquired an interest in the note and become a party to the suit, making him incompetent to testify against the deceased person's estate.

The court examined whether a new promise could be inferred from the debtor's letters or from credit entries on the note itself. The court found that the plaintiff failed to prove the debtor's handwriting on any credits dated after the statutory deadline, and the letters were too vague and indefinite to establish any promise specifically referencing this debt. The jury's verdict reflected this conclusion. Additionally, the note had been outstanding for more than twenty-nine years, exceeding both the general twenty-year statute of limitations for such instruments and the bar imposed by the 1869 act.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

Competency of a creditor to testify against a deceased debtor's estate after acquiring an interest in the debt
Whether a new promise can be inferred from vague letters not specifically identifying the debt
Whether credit entries constitute evidence of a new promise under the statute of frauds
Application of the 1869 statute and general statute of limitations to barred promissory notes

Procedural posture

The plaintiff appealed from a judgment entered against him in an action to collect a promissory note from the administrator of the deceased debtor's estate.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion · public domain

majority opinion

Bleckley, Justice.

There was no material fact in the rejected testimony of the plaintiff (whose interrogatories were excluded on the ground that the other party was dead) except as to what the deceased had done, or spoken, or written. Was the plaintiff competent to prove these things It is said that because his information was acquired before he purchased the note and while he was wholly disinterested, he was competent — that a subsequent interest, and his being a party to the suit, would not disqualify him. Surely this position is not tenable. If a person voluntarily destroys his competency as a witness, he himself cannot complain. But in fact the plaintiff has the very same competency now which he had before. His original competency was not to testify for himself against a dead man’s estate, but for another, and he can still testify for others. He has no less competency now to testify in his own behalf than he had in the beginning. The death of his adversary has affected him just as such a casualty affects everybody else who comes as a creditor to coerce payment by an administrator. Code, §3854.

The note on its face was barred by the act of 1869. Of this there can be no doubt. Was there a new promise after June 1st, 1865 ? This depends on whether any credit later than that date was in the handwriting of the debtor, and if not, whether a promise to pay this identical note can be found in, or inferred from, his letters, or any of them. The note, with the credits thereon, and the letters, were all the evidence before the jury, the plaintiff’s evidence by interrogatories having been ruled out. Grant that the plaintiff was competent to prove handwriting, still he did not do it. He could go no further than to say that the entry of a certain credit was either by the debtor, or by the payee with his authority. Here he was on ground to which his competency as a witness did not extend; but had it been otherwise, there is no proof that there was any authority in writing, and if it were only in parol, it would be insufficient; for a credit entered by the payee under that kind of authority would be exposed to all the evils which the statute intended to remedy by requiring new promises to be in writing. Code, §2934. If the creditor could be the debtor’s agent to raise a new promise by entering a credit, his authority would have to be in writing; and if in writing, and sufficiently definite as to the debt, etc., the authority itself would amount to a new promise, whether the credit was entered in pursuance of it or not. Hammonds admr. vs. Carter & Shelton, this term.

The jury, doubtless, scrutinized the letters, and as their verdict shows, they did not gather any new promise from them which could be identified as referring to this debt. The letters do not specify any particular debt whatever, and they seem to us. too vague and indefinite in that respect to warrant a recovery on the antiquated demand. 55 Ga., 264. When the suit was brought the note had been due more than twenty-nine years, and the general statute of limitations, to say nothing of the act of 1869, gave but twenty years for suit on such an instrument.

Judgment affirmed.