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66 N.H. 480

29 A 553

Broadhurst v. Morgan

Supreme Court of New Hampshire

Decided June 5, 1891

Supreme Court of New Hampshire · decided 1891-06-05

Case, for deceit, with a count in assumpsit. The action was brought in the police court of Somer-sworth, where the plaintiff' had judgment, and the defendant appealed. The defendant-demurred on the ground (1) that the counts could not be joined, and (2) that no cause of action was stated in either count. The-demurrer was overruled, and the plaintiff had leave to file a new count in assumpsit. The defendant excepted. Facts found by the court.

Relies on Sawyer v. Manchester & Keene Railroad · Rutherford v. Whitcher

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1891-06-05

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently March 1911

6 state decisions

40189119001910decided

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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Smith, J.

¶1 The money attached in the trustee suit was not Morgan’s money. The attachment gave him no right to it or to its possession, but merely a statutory lien, with the right to hold Morgan’s interest in it, provided he should obtain judgment and seasonably sue out and levy an execution. Baker v. Beers, 64 N H. 102, 104. Broadhurst, by paying the money to Morgan before it had been judicially determined that Parsons was indebted to him, was not thereby discharged of his indebtedness to Parsons. JMrsons’s right to enforce payment was merely suspended during the pendency of the trustee process, and when by Morgan’s neglect to complete the service of his writ the attachment was dissolved and suit discontinued, his right to demand and recover the money of Broadhurst was as complete as though it had not been attached. It was against this liability that Morgan promised to indemnify Broadhurst; and because of his neglect to protect him, the latter is entitled to recover his damages, assessed at $9.62.

¶2 Broadhurst was under no legal obligation to permit Morgan to undertake the defence of the Parsons suit and await the result of litigation, at least without being secured against the costs of litigation. It is not suggested that there was any defence to the suit, and none is perceived. If Parsons could not recover of Broadhurst, it is clear the latter was not chargeable as trustee.

¶3 Whether justice required that the declaration should be amended, *482 was a question of fact to be determined at the trial term. Sawyer v. Railroad, 62 N. H. 135.

¶4 Counts in case and assumpsit may be joined in a declaration on a single cause of action. Rutherford v. Whitcker, 60 N. H. 110.

¶5 Exceptions overruled.

Carpenter, J., did not sit: the others concurred.
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