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3 Cal. 231

Backus, Davis & Co. v. Minor

California Supreme Court

Decided July 15, 1853

California Supreme Court · decided 1853-07-15

The facts in this case, as they appear upon the record, show, that in September, 1850, respondent made and delivered to the appellants, three promissory notes, two o.f them dated September 11th, 1850, for $5000 each, and the other dated September 12th, 1850, for $5913 40, and all bearing interest at the rate of six per cent, per month. Sundry sums were paid on the notes, at different times, after their maturity; the last payment, November 15th, 1851.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““The dealings of the parties run through a period of more than two years. During this time the appellants render to the defendant three or four stated accounts, showing balances. In all of these accounts, and through the whole of this time, they pursue the one mode of calculating interest. It has become their way of doing business.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Sayward v. Dexter, Horton & Co.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1853-07-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently August 1979

3 federal appellate · 5 state decisions

301853186018701880189019001910192019301940195019601970decided

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 →

¶1The following opinion was, at the close of the argument, delivered by

Heydenfeldt, Justice ;

¶2Wells, Justice, concurring.

¶3The re-argument of this cause has not induced me to change my opinion.

¶4*235The dealings of the parties run through a period of more than two years. During this time the appellants render to the defendant three or four stated accounts, showing balances ; in all of these accounts, and throughout the whole of this time, they pursue the one mode of calculating interest. It has become their way of doing business. It is their system, and they pursue it and persist in it until the indebtedness of the defendant is fully paid off, as found by the award of the referees.

¶5It is true that an account after payment may be opened ^nd surcharged on the ground of mistake, but the calculation] of interest by the plaintiffs in this case can in no sense be called a mistake. It was a deliberate, methodical plan of doing business, according to a well-comprehended rule, and there is no authority or reason, at law or in equity, by which they are entitled to any relief.

¶6Judgment affirmed.

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