Minnesota Supreme Court, 1921

L. J. Mueller Furnace Co. v. Burkhart

Minnesota Supreme Court · Decided May 13, 1921 · Dibell

149 Minn. 68; 182 N.W. 909; 1921 Minn. LEXIS 593 (Minnesota Reports)

Counsel

H. A. Welch, for appellant., W. G. é W. F. Odell, for respondent.

Can I rely on this case?

Citation treatment has not been reviewed for this case. The notes below come from the citation graph and the Minnesota Revisor's amendment records, not from a review of how later courts treated this decision.

(as of 9/30/2026)

Last cited by a Minnesota appellate court in 1958, among the opinions in this site’s citation index.

Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

See our Terms of Use before relying on these notes. Report an error

Cases that cite this one

6 later published cases cite this decision.

General Electric Co. v. Anchor Casualty Co. (Minn. 1958)
A. Y. McDonlald Manufacturing Co. v. Lima (Minn. 1932)
Standard Salt & Cement Co. v. Commercial Casualty Insurance (Minn. 1927)
Radichel v. Federal Surety Co. (Minn. 1927)
Standard Oil Co. v. Day (Minn. 1924)
State ex rel. Spillman v. Security State Bank (Neb. 1928)

This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

Opinion of the Court

Dibell, J.

Action to foreclose a mechanic’s lien for material sold by the plaintiff, a corporation having its principal place of business at Milwaukee, to the Taplin Heating Company, a copartnership doing business at Minneapolis, and by the latter used in the construction of the defendant’s house. The defense was payment to the plaintiff by the heating company. The court *69found payment. The plaintiff appeals from the judgment in favor of the defendant.

1. The rule is that when a debtor pays generally on a continuous account, neither debtor nor creditor making an application, the payments, will be applied on the basis of priority, and the oldest debit item will be first paid, or, in other words, the law applies payments made on the first unpaid debit items. Hersey v. Bennett, 28 Minn. 86, 9 N. W. 590, 41 Am. St. 271; Jefferson v. Church of St. Matthew, 41 Minn. 392, 43 N. W. 74; Board of Co. Commrs. of Redwood County v. Citizens Bank of Redwood Falls, 67 Minn. 236, 69 N. W. 912; Pond & Hasey Co. v. O’Connor, 70 Minn. 266, 73 N. W. 159, 248.

2. The plaintiff kept a loose leaf ledger account with the Taplin company. It designated on the debit side the person for whose use the material furnished was intended. • That used in the defendant’s house was marked on the ledger account “Burkhart job,” or by a similar designation. Material was sold to the heating company for use in particular jobs. The credits were not applied. They variously appear as “cash,” “discount,” or “credit memo.” • The credit items were considerably greater in amount than necessary to pay the heating company’s debit for the material furnished íot the defendant’s house, and all prior debits. Applying the rale stated in paragraph 1, which controls when the parties make no application, the heating company paid the plaintiff for the material used in the defendant’s house.

Judgment affirmed.

Case-law data current through September 30, 2026. Source: CourtListener bulk data.