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35 Ill. 158

Webster & Baxter v. Pierce & Barber

Illinois Supreme Court

Decided April 15, 1864

Illinois Supreme Court · decided 1864-04-15

Pierce & Barber instituted their action of assumpsit in the court below against Webster & Baxter. The declaration contained the common counts for money lent, money had and received, goods sold and delivered, and work and labor. The defendants pleaded the general issue. Upon the trial the plaintiffs, to sustain the issue on their part, offered the following account current, to wit: Chicago, April 30th, 1861. Messrs. Pierce & Barber, In account with Webster & Baxter, Mar. 5.

Relies on Knox v. Light · Springfield Marine & Fire Insurance v. Tincher

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1864-04-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently February 1977

6 state decisions

20186418701880189019001910192019301940195019601970decided

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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Mr. Justice Bbeese

¶1delivered the opinion of the Court:

¶2The. law of this case, on the facts appearing in the record, is so well expressed in the instruction given by the court for the plaintiffs that we deem any other argument unnecessary.

¶3If the plaintiffs sent gold and drafts to the defendants to he sold for currency, and defendants sold the same and rendered an account stating that there was any sum due to the plaintiffs in currency, that is prima facie evidence that there was so much or such sum due to the plaintiffs in current funds, and to excuse the defendants from liability the defendants must show that they paid over the same or offered to do so. An offer to pay in “stump-tail” or depreciated currency on demand would not excuse the defendants from their liability. If they rely upon a tender, they must show they had the currency and offered to pay it, and they should have continued the offer and brought the money into court, or otherwise kept the tender good.

¶4An agent 'has no right to mix the funds of his principal with his own, and then hold his principal liable for the depreciation of moneys in his hands. If he seeks to make his principal liable for losses on bank failures, or other losses on moneys of his principal, the agent must keep the moneys of his principal separate and distinct from his own.

¶5There was no proof that defendants tendered currency, or that they had it to tender, hi or, if tendered, did they keep the tender good and bring the currency tendered into court. A tender to be available must be kept good, and brought into court. Knox et al. v. Light et al., 12 Ill. 86; Marine Bank v. Rushmore et al., 28 id. 463; Sheridan v. Smith et al., 2 Hill (N. Y.), 538; Brown v. Ferguson, 2 Denio, 196. numerous other cases might be cited to the same effect.

¶6It was no discharge of the defendants’ liability to offer bank notes which were depreciated at least thirty-five per cent, for a debt due and owing in currency. Currency, we have decided, is coin, or such bank notes as pass freely in commercial transactions as money and regarded nearly equivalent to coin. Marine and Fire Ins. Co. v. Tincher, 30 Ill. 399.

¶7The judgment must be affirmed.

¶8„ Judgment affirmed.

¶9Beckwith, J., dissenting.

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