Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

13 Vt. 430

Wheelock v. Moulton

Supreme Court of Vermont

Decided February 15, 1841

Supreme Court of Vermont · decided 1841-02-15

<p>A party cannot except to a judgment which awards him a greater sum than he claims, on the ground that he is credited for a sum of money which should go to the credit of another person or firm.</p> <p>The judgment in one case is not evidence in the other. Therefore a person, who is interested in another suit in a question involved here,'is not, on that account, necessarily incompetent to testify in this case.</p> <p>In actions of book account, which come into this court upon exceptions reserved in the county court by one party, and which are overruled here, this court cannot re-examine questions which were decided against the other party,and to which decisions no exceptions were taken and reserved.</p> <p>When the exceptions taken and reserved are in this court sustained, and the judgment of the county court reversed, the whole case is then before this court, to render such judgment as the county court should have rendered.</p> <p>In contracts for interest, generally, interest upon interest will not be allowed.</p>

Cited in Bouvier (1914)’s definition of “Bill Of Exceptions”

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1841-02-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently October 1935

3 state decisions

101841185018601870188018901900191019201930decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1The opinion of the court was delivered by

Redfield, J.

¶2This case comes into this court on exceptions, taken by the defendants to the decision of the county Court in accepting a report of auditors. The only question raised by defendants is whether the plaintiff had a right to credit them in this action a certain item of $930.41. We do not see how any such exception can be maintained. The plaintiff might balance his account, if he saw fit, or he might remit any portion of it, without the pfetence of payment. The defendants could not complain of it. Its allowance in this action will not exonerate the plaintiff from allowing it in another action, where Samuel Ford is defendant. And had it been rejected here, it would not be allowed in Ford’s favor in the other action any more on that account. The judgment in this action is not evidence in that action. On that account we do not well see how Ford is not competent to testify in this suit. But whether he was or not, the defendants cannot complain of a decision which was in their own favor.

¶3The plaintiff also asks the court to correct an error in the judgment of the county court, in not allowing him compound interest.

¶4*434It is a sufficient answer to this application, that the plaintiff took no exceptions to the judgment of the county court. As the case comes here on exceptions reserved by the defendants, and those are overruled, we can only affirm the judgment. Had we reversed the judgment of the county court, on the exceptions reserved, we might then have examined the whole case, and rendered such a judgment as the county court should have rendered.

¶5It is obvious, too, that under a contract like the present, where money was advanced to be repaid with interest, generally, the most that could be allowed the plaintiff would be to deduct the interest, already accrued, from the several payments.

¶6No custom of merchants, however uniform or long standing, will justify a court, in this state, in allowing a party to cast interest upon interest on a running account.

¶7Judgment affirmed.

/13/vt/430 · .json · Public domain