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22 Mo. 124

Ubsdell v. Cunningham

Supreme Court of Missouri

Decided October 15, 1855

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1855-10-15

Louis Law Commissioner’s Court. This was an action originally commenced before a justice of the peace, and taken thence by appeal to the law commissioner’s court. The cause of action was founded on the following instruments, notes or due bills : On the trial before the law commissioner’s court, the following agreement or stipulation was given in evidence on the part of the plaintiffs : “ John A. Ubsdell and Charles Pierson v. Henry D. Cunningham.

Cited in Abbott (1879)’s definition of “Soon”

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1855-10-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently October 1963

19 state decisions — followed in 11 states

60185518601870188018901900191019201930194019501960decided

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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Leonard, Judge,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2The only question that can be made here is, whether the obligation incurred by these note? is suspended upon the condition that the accounts referred to should be collected, or whether the words in one note, “ to be paid as soon as collected *126from my accounts at Pokeepsie,” and in the other, “ to be paid as soon as collected at Pokeepsie, now in the hands of H. B.' P. of that place,” ought to be understood merely as prescribing the time of payment, by indicating the fund out of which the debtor expected to pay, and thereby securing to him the delay necessary to render it available. Both notes contain direct acknowledgments of indebtedness, the language being “ Due Messrs. U. & P. --dollars, ” although only one of them discloses the cause of it (goods sold) ; and we think the subsequent words, “to be paid,” &c., were not intended to show' that the debts were conditional — depending for their existence as valid demands against the makers, upon the fact that the sums to be paid could be collected out of the accounts referred to, but only to prescribe the time of payment, by reference not to days and years, but to a reasonable time for the collection of the accounts. This construction is warranted by the language used, and we have no doubt will execute the real intention of the parties.

¶3It being admitted that all had been collected upon these claims that could be collected, the term prescribed for the payment of the notes had expired, and they became due according to our construction of them. The judgment is therefore reversed, and the cause remanded,

Judge Ryland concurring.
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