Overdue
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
1.
Of commercial paper, dishonored; matured and unpaid; past the time named for payment, yet not paid. Wharton defines it as meaning past the time of payment. But we do not understand that the term is applicable to paper which has been paid. To be called overdue, a note must be still due; that is, not paid, although the time of maturity has passed. In this re.spect, Bouvier's definition is superior: a bill, note, bond, or other contract for the payment of money at a particular day, when not paid upon the day, is overdue. There is but a shade of difference between "overdue" and "due;" it consists in an implication of censure, which the former word conveys, and the latter does not. A bill becomes due throughout the business hours of the day on which it is by law payable; but as yet it is not overdue. If paid during so called if no censure, no imputation of being dishonored, is intended; or it may be called "overdue," meaning to impute loss of negotiability and other consequences of default in payment of a mercantile paper.
2.
Of vessels, one is said to be due, when the time at which she ought, under ordinary circumstances, to reach port, arrives, yet she has not come; and to be overdue, after that time passes without her arrival.