Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

60 N.H. 161

Wright v. Aldrich

Supreme Court of New Hampshire

Decided June 5, 1880

Supreme Court of New Hampshire · decided 1880-06-05

Assumpsit. Arthur II. Aldrich, in a suit against the plaintiff, recovered judgment, which the plaintiff satisfied by payment to the defendant, Arthur’s attorney. The defendant, in good faith, applied a part of the money in the payment of costs and of other claims against Arthur, by his direction, and gave him credit for the balance on his own account against him, amounting to a larger sum.

Relies on Little v. Bunce

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1880-06-05

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently April 2006

3 state decisions

101880189019001910192019301940195019601970198019902000decided

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 →

Allen, J.

¶1 In Little v. Bunce, 7 N. H. 485, it was decided that when a judgment in favor of one party is reversed upon error or review, the only remedy for restitution is against a party to the record. The defendant here was neither party of record nor in interest in the case of Arthur R. Aldrich v. Wright, but only attorney for the plaintiff in that action. When he collected the avails of the original judgment and applied them to his own claim and the claims of others under the direction of his client, he was acting in good faith, in the ordinary course of business, under a judgment not then vacated, and which he could have had no reason to suppose would be vacated. The title to chattels purchased at an execution *162 sale is not affected by a subsequent reversal of tbe judgment, and the voluntary assignment of a note, or the payment of money by the execution debtor to the plaintiff’s attorney, in satisfaction of the debt, cannot, for reasons equally good, be impeached, when afterwards the judgment may have been vacated. Little v. Bunce, supra, citing Soe's Case, 8 Coke (London, 1826) 181; Drury's Case, 4 id. 418; 2 Tidd Prac. 1138. Even if the application of the money by the defendant to the payment of a part of his own claim had not been made, but remained in his hands as a collector for Arthur R. Aldrich, it could not be recovered in this action, for the defendant was not a party to the original suit. Rex v. Leaver, 2 Salk. 587. In such a case it would be necessary for the plaintiff to proceed by trustee process, or some other equitable form of action.

¶2 Judgment for the defendant.

Bingham and Smith, JJ., did not sit: the others concurred.
/60/nh/161 · .json · Public domain