Hoffman v. Lee
Hoffman v. Lee
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
We must recollect that a scire facias on a mortgage is a proceeding under an act of assembly against the land mortgaged;
Generally, the admissions of a vendor are not evidence, made after he has parted with all interest in the land; though his declarations while owner, are evidence against him and those claiming under him, if he is dead, or still interested, or out of the reach of process of the court. Packer v. Gonsales, 1 Serg. & Rawle 526.
The point in the second bill of exceptions will not then arise, but the judge was right in rejecting declarations made at another time. 5 Serg. & Rawle 295; 7 Serg. & Rawle 1.
The other objections made in this case all relate to the charge given to the jury by the judge; and although divided by the counsel into five, may be considered as.really only two.
The judge charged that the paper given by Lee to John Hoffman might be considered as a statement of the amount due on the mortgage at that time, but it was not a release, nor an agreement to suspend proceedings for four years, if the payments were made as there proposed; and if it was such an agreement, it was not binding ori Lee, because no notes or bonds were given by John, and therefore no consideration; and because John was not quite [twenty-one years of age when he received that paper, though he was of age when he’ assigned it to Phipps. ■ . -
In the first place we are all of opinion it was a binding agreement: whether such a paper given to Jacob Hoffman, the debtor, would have been binding, is not the question, though if a mortgagee gives a writing to his mortgagor that he will accept a debt, presently due, if paid in instalments at specified times, and receives one or more of these as they fall due, it may in some instances be a great fraud to afterwards proceed before the other instalments fall due ; and I am not prepared to say that it would, under all circumstances, be void :. but that is not this case; it was here given to a person proposing' to purchase, and who, having received it, did purchase. John probably knew that he.could not pay 100 dollars within a year, but might be very confident that he could, by his labour raise 25 dollars per year. In consequence of this paper he gave his gun, and he laboured for Lee to the amount of 37 dollars within the first year; now any injury to another, any labour on him, any hardship induced to him, is a good consideration to support an agreement and make a promise binding on him who made it. It is not fair nor honest to make a promise which induces a man, a stranger to the party, to pay his goods and give his labour, to exchange his.own property for an incumbered property, on a promise not tó press the incumbrance, and then say, I make nothing by this indulgence which I promised you, and I will not’meet my promise: it cannot be doné after putting the other to loss of time or labour or property; or after, by such promise, inducing-him to do what lie never would have done but for reliance on
In Livingston v. Byrne, 11 Johns. Rep. 555, we find a case like this in some respects, but infinitely stronger. There, L. had a deed of trust of lands dated the 1st of December 1803; and on the 24th of December 1803 another deed, to L. aud to others, containing the lands in the first deed, and many other lands also, in trust to pay the debt of the grantor: on the 27th of December 1803, a judgment for a large amount was obtained against the grantor and an execution issued, and the lands comprised in the deeds of trust about to be sold by the marshal for this large debt which was due to the United States. To induce purchasers to bid, the three trustees published in the public papers that they would, if required, release to any person who should purchase any of the Livingston lands, all. their right under their deed of trust of the 24th of December 1803. Byrne became the purchaser of half of eight hundred lots in the town of Esperanza (now Athens) for 11 dollars, a monstrous undervalue. J. R. Livingston, the trustee in the first deed of the 1st of December, thought himself justified under the circumstances (although he agreed to release all right under deed of the 24th'of December) to retain these lots which were in his deed of the 1st of December. The chancellor held him bound, by his advertisement, to release all right under the first as well as the second deed of trust: he appealed, and the same was affirmed by the unanimous opinion of the court. Here was n.o. consideration to J. R. Livingston ; the object of gettingafair price for the property had failed; his title was a deed under seal; his promise not under seal, a mere advertisement in a newspaper; that promise was not barely a promise to suspend payment, but to give an absolute release of all right to the property; and he was compelled to execute such release, because his parol promise was known and seen at the time of the sale, and induced Byrne to bid. A parol agreement or engagement at one time w’eighed nothing in a court of law, when used against a deed or instrument under seal; but in equity the inquiry is, did the person make an agreement fairly and without any fraud or imposition, did he derive any benefit, or expect to derive any benefit from it, or did he induce any other person to incur expense or risk, or perform' service, or otherwise subject himself to loss or risk? and if so, the agreement is enforced, though not sealed.
There is another point in which we think there was mistake in the court below. A sum payable in four annual payments can in no sense be understood to be demandable within three years; if one of the payments was to be made on the day of the contract, it would be, and always has been, and is expressed, one-fourth to day and
Judgment reversed.
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