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197 Mass. 347

Mitchell v. Thomas

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided February 26, 1908

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1908-02-26

<p>Statute of Limitations. Evidence, Of payment. Bills and Notes. Payment.</p> <p>At the trial of an action upon a promissory note by the payee against the maker, the defence relied upon was that the period of limitation had passed. Upon the back of the .note was indorsed a payment with a date within a time less than the statutory period before the action was brought, and the plaintiff, subject to exception by the defendant, testified that the indorsement was written upon the note by him in the presence of the defendant, who saw it made and who at the same time paid to the plaintiff the amount stated in the indorsement to have been paid. The defendant contended that the case was within the provisions of R. L. c. 202, § 13, that no indorsement of a payment of the principal or interest of a note, written on the note by the party to whom such payment had been made, should be sufficient proof of the payment to take the case out of the provision of the statute of limitations. Held, that, there being other evidence sufficient to prove the payment besides the indorsement, the statute did not apply.</p>

Cited by 1 later decisions — most recently December 1939

1 state decisions

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1908-02-26

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Rugg, J.

¶1The defendant has argued that testimony by the payee of notes, to the effect that the maker made a certain payment to her before the statute of limitations had run, and that, thereupon, in the maker’s presence, the payee wrote an indorsement of payment on the back of each of the notes in suit, and that he then promised to pay the balance due, was inadmissible. There is nothing in this contention. Under R. L. c. 202, §13, a mere indorsement of payment by the holder of a note, standing by itself and without corroboration from circumstances or other evidence, is not sufficient to lift the bar of the statute of limitations. But this statute has no application where there is evidence outside the indorsement. Sibley v. Phelps, 6 Cush. 172. The plaintiff’s testimony as to the circumstances, under which the payment and the indorsements were made, and the accompanying conversation, was ample to show a payment made within six years by the defendant. The rulings requested by the defendant were properly refused, and those given by the Superior Court aptly stated the law applicable to the issues and the evi*349dence. The case is so clear that the exceptions appear frivolous. Therefore, double costs are imposed, and interest at the rate of twelve per cent a year upon the amount found due as debt, from the time when the exceptions were allowed, and it is

¶2 So ordered.

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