Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

20 Johns. 365

Allen v. Rightmere

New York Supreme Court

Decided January 15, 1823

New York Supreme Court · decided 1823-01-15

THIS was an action of assumpsit, tried at the Cayuga Circuit, in May, 1822, before Mr. Justice Platt. Lewis Toan made a note, dated April 2, 1818, by which, for value received, he promised to pay the defendant, or order, six hundred dollars, on the first of April, then next, with interest.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1823-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 28 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 1933 · most notably Douglass v. Reynolds, Byrne & Co. (1832), Watson's Executors v. McLaren (1838)

24 state decisions — followed in 12 states

60182318301840185018601870188018901900191019201930decided

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 →

Spencer, Ch. J.

¶1delivered the opinion of the Court. Proof of demand and notice of non-payment were not necessary. The defendant’s engagement is, in effect, that Toan should pay the note, or that he would pay it. It is the duty of the debtor to seek the creditor, and pay his debt on the very day it becomes due. As regards the maker of the note, and to render him liable, no demand is necessary. A demand of payment is necessary only to fix an endorser or a surety, whose undertaking is conditional. An endorser does not absolutely engage to pay. It is a conditionál undertaking to pay, if the maker of the note does not, upon being required to do so, when the note falls due, and upon the further condition, that the endorser shall be notified of such default. The defendant insists that he stands in the situation of an endorser merely; but such is not the fact. The undertaking here is not conditional; it is absolute, that the ¡maker shall pay the note when due, or that the defendant ¡will himself pay it. In Tillman v. Wheeler, (17 Johns. Rep. 326.) and the cases there referred to, it was taken for granted, that upon a guaranty such as this, no demand or notice would have been necessary. (12 Mass. Rep. 14.)

¶2Judgment for the plaintiff.

/20/johns/365 · .json · Public domain