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18 Ala. 117

Beall & Co. v. Ridgeway

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided June 15, 1850

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1850-06-15

Error, to the Cffcujt Court of Mapon. Tried before the. Hon, John John J. Woodward. This was an action of assumpsit on a promissory note made by the defendant in favor of the plaintiffs in error. The cause was tried' upon issues formed on the pleas of non assumpsit and want of consideration.

Relies on Files v. McLeod

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1850-06-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently February 1913

9 state decisions

401850186018701880189019001910decided

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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CHILTON, J.

¶1The record presents the case of a promise in writing, on the part, of the defendant, Ridgeway, to pay th.e*119debt of Reese, and this without any request on the part of Reese, or any consideration for such promise. The promise to pay the debt of a third person must not only be in writing, but founded on .a legal consideration, otherwise it is a nudum paciwm.and cannot be enforced if the want of consideration is shown. —Files v. McLeod, 14 Ala. 611; Thompson v. Hall, 16 ib. 204, and cases cited in these decisions.

¶2The witness Reese was interested, but in favor of the plaintiff, p¡nd against the defendant, whq introduced hirp, As Ridgeway could not, by the assumption of this debt, have made Reese his debtor nolens volens, and as he assumed to pay it without any request of Reese, the latter would, not, in the event a recovery had been effected against Ridgeway, have been liable, to refund to Ridge-way ; but he was interested in having the demand he owed Beall & Co. paid. So that it is clear he had no such interest as disqualified him from testifying in favor, of the defendant, and, the-court did not err in refusing to reject hipi as a.witness. Lpt the, judgment be affirmed.

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