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112 Ind. 39

Gale v. Corey

Indiana Supreme Court

Decided September 29, 1887

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1887-09-29

<p>Promissory Note. — Duty of Maker to Ascertain Proper Person to Whom Payment Should be Made. — It is the duty of one having a matured outstanding note, in which no specific place of payment is appointed, to seek out the persons entitled to receive payment and discharge.his debt, without waiting until those so entitled establish their right.</p> <p>Same. — Death of Payee. — Decedents’ Estates. — Interest.—Abatement of. — Payment.— Upon the death of the payee of a matured promissory note, interest will not abate thereon, although the maker has the money set apart-with which to pay it, and although there is no administration on the estate, the minor heirs of the deceased are without guardians, and it is uncertain as to whether there is indebtedness against the estate. If the maker desires to escape the payment of interest he should cause letters ■of administration to issue, and pay the debt to the administrator.</p> <p>Same. — Interest After Maturity. — Contract.—Where a promissory note, by its terms, becomes due at a specified time subsequent to the death of a third party, who, during his lifetime, is to receive the interest thereon, and provides that on the death of such party interest shall cease, such latter stipulation will operate to relieve the maker from the payment of interest from the deatli of such party until the maturity of the note, after which interest is recoverable at the statutory rate.</p>

Relies on Kilgore v. Powers · Shaw v. Rigby

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1887-09-29

How this case has been cited

Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently June 1940

2 federal appellate · 12 state decisions

501887189019001910192019301940decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1On Petition foe a Reheating.

Mitchell, C. J.

¶2It seems hardly necessary to say that the opinion given on the original hearing was not intended to, and does not, in any way alfect the rule upon the subject of interest, as announced in Kilgore v. Powers, 5 Blackf. 22, and the later case of Shaw v. Rigby, 84 Ind. 375 (43 Am. R. 96). These cases hold, in effect, that the interest recoverable on a contract which stipulates the rate to be paid, is at the same rate after as before the maturity of the contract. Obviously, however, these cases do not hold, nor do any others that we are aware of, that in case the contract stipulates *46that a sum of money shall be paid at a certain day, without interest, it shall continue to run indefinitely without interest until payment is enforced. After maturity the money is due upon an instrument in writing, and as there never had been, in the case supposed, any contract rate fixed, the statute fixes the rate at six per cent. This was decided, in effect, in the recent case of Kopelke v. Kopelke, post, p. 435.

¶3In the present case there was no contract fixing the rate of interest between the maker and payees of the note. The stipulation that interest should stop after the death of John and Mary Corey was equivalent to a stipulation that from their death until the maturity of the notes, respectively, the notes should run without interest. After the maturity of the notes, the amount represented by each became money due upon an instrument in writing, and the interest recoverable was controlled by the statute.

¶4Nothing further need be said, except to observe that the original opinion contains no intimation that the appellee might have procured himself to be appointed administrator of the estate in question. It remains true, nevertheless, that any one, no matter where he resides, who shows that he is interested in an estate, and that a necessity exists for the appointment of an administrator, so as to enable persons who are indebted to make payment, may seeure the appointment of an administrator, if none has been appointed, and the statutory time for making application, by those having the preference, has expired.

¶5The petition is overruled.

¶6Filed Dec. 2, 1887.

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