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136 Mass. 503

Goss v. Ellison

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided February 28, 1884

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1884-02-28

<p>A written instrument, given to one of two joint tortfeasors, and reciting the receipt from him of a certain sum “as full payment, as per claim,” is a bar to an action against the other tortfeasor; and oral evidence is inadmissible to show that the sum paid was intended to be received as part, and not as full payment.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1884-02-28

How this case has been cited

Cited by 21 later decisions — most recently December 1967

2 federal appellate · 1 district · 17 state decisions

70188418901900191019201930194019501960decided

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 →

Morton, C. J.

¶1This is an action of tort for the conversion

¶2of a horse. The plaintiff’s evidence clearly shows that he let the horse to one Ruggles and the defendant jointly, and that they jointly converted it. It is an established rule that a release of one of several joint tortfeasors discharges all. Stone v. Dickinson, 5 Allen, 29. Brown v. Cambridge, 3 Allen, 474.

¶3It appeared at the trial, that the plaintiff claimed as his damages $225; that he received of Ruggles one half of this amount, partly in money and partly in a promissory note, and gave there-, for a writing of the following tenor: “ Received of Mr. Elmer Ruggles a note on six months for fifty-one dollars, with interest, as full payment, as per claim.” If this could be treated merely as a receipt, it might be open for the plaintiff to show by paroi that it was not intended as full payment and satisfaction of his claim against Ruggles. But it is more than a receipt. It is not only an acknowledgment of the receipt of Ruggles’s note for fifty-one dollars, but it is a statement of what the note was received for. It was received “as full payment” for the plaintiff’s claim against Ruggles. If the plaintiff should sue Ruggles, this contract would be a bar to the suit, because it is conclusive evidence of a settlement and satisfaction of the claim against him. It is not open to the plaintiff to contradict the writing, by paroi testimony that the sum paid was intended as part, and not as full payment. The case cannot be distinguished from Brownv. Cambridge, ubi supra; and the Superior Court rightly ruled that the action could not be maintained.

¶4Exceptions overruled.

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