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5 Ala. 110

Taylor v. Bass

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided January 15, 1843

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1843-01-15

Whit of Error to the County Court of Tallapoosa county. Assumpsit by Taylor, for the use of Berry against Bass, on a promissory note made by him, and due 22d January, 1840. At the trial, the defendant gave in evidence, under the pleas of payment and set-off, a joint and several note made by the nominal plaintiff Taylor, and one Lovelace, payable to Dunn & Co. and due the 2d January, 1840.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1843-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently June 1922

5 state decisions

10184318501860187018801890190019101920decided

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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GOLDTHWAITE, J.

¶1The debt allowed as a set-off, by the court below, was due to the defendant and another, as partners, and there is nothing in the record to show any assent of the one, that the other should appropriate it to his own use or sole benefit.

¶2In principle, this case cannot be distinguished from that of Pierce v. Pass, [1 Porter, 232,] where it was held, that the individual debt of one partner could not be set-off against a debt due to the firm. [See also, Von Pheel v. Connelly, 9 Porter, 452.]

¶3The statute, [Digest, 281,] allows mutual debts to be set-off, and if the relative situation of these parties is reversed, it will be seen there is no mutuality whatever; in such a case, Dunn & Bass, as partners, would be plaintiffs, and Taylor defendant, and the' latter would not be allowed to set-off the debt due from Bass, against the suit of the firm. The reason why this would not be allowed is, that by it the partnership assets' would be diverted and appropriated to the payment of one partner’s individual debts, and thereby the creditors of the joint concern, as well as the other partner, would be involved with the payment of debts with which they had no concern, and for which the other partner is in no manner liable.

¶4The attempt to appropriate the partnership debt to the payment of the individual debt is equally apparent in the case before us, and however the case might be if the assent of the other partner was shown before suit, the set-off cannot prevail under the facts disclosed.

¶5Judgment reversed and the cause remanded.

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