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22 N.H. 217

Doe v. Thompson

Superior Court of New Hampshire

Decided December 15, 1850

Superior Court of New Hampshire · decided 1850-12-15

The action was founded upon the two following agreements in writing: “ 19 November, 1831. For value received, I promise William Doe to pay him twenty-five dollars, on condition that no arrangement is effected, by which the mortgage now held by the Grafton Bank, in the Ben Porter homestead farm, is purchased for the benefit of those «interested in said farm. Wm.

Relies on Buffum v. Chadwick

Cited in Ballentine's (1916)’s definition of “Bill of costs”

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1850-12-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently May 1928

8 state decisions

2018501860187018801890190019101920decided

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 →

Bell, J.

¶1By the first contract the money was payable, if no arrangement was made in a reasonable time, and the statute began to run as soon as the plaintiff acquired a right of action. There is nothing in the nature or terms of the contract, or in the facts shown, which renders it in any way probable that the arrangement proposed could not reasonably be made within a few years from the date of the contract, and the action as to this cause is barred.

¶2The second contract being in terms payable to an agent, he may maintain an action upon it. Paley on Agency, 361; Story on Agency, 403 ; Buffum v. Chadwick, 8 Mass. 103.

¶3Where several purchasers are interested in land subject to a mortgage, they are to contribute to the payment of it, in proportion to the value of their respective interests in it, and a like rule is equitable, as to the costs of a suit on the mortgage. Tay*219lor v. Bassett, 3 N. H. Rep. 293 ; Robinson v. Leavitt, 7 N. H. Rep. 100 ; Jenness v. Robinson, 10 N. H. Rep. 215.

¶4In tbe absence of other evidence of the value of such interests, the purchase-money paid may be reasonably deemed the fair value, and by this measure the interest of the Does appears by the case to be H parts.

¶5The phrase, “ bill of costs,” though equivocal, we think, is by the ordinary use of the expression to be understood taxable costs.

¶6Judgment for § of §j¡- parts of taxable costs.

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