Appropriation

contracts, is the application of the payment of a sum of money, made by a debtor to his creditor, to one of several debts which are due by the former to the latter. The debtor has a right to appropriate the payment to which debt he pleases; but if, at the time of making such payment, he neglects to make such appropriation, the creditor has a right to make it, unless the circumstances show, or raise an inference that the debtor had, at the time of making payment, an intention to make such an appropriation. The nature of the debts or claims makes no: difference. Chitty, Contr. 277; 3 Stark. Ev. 1093, n. (1) for the American cases on this subject; 1 Vern. R. by Raithby, 23, 24; 3 Vin. Ab. 33; Wheat. Dig. tit.

Payment.

In Louisiana by statutory enactment, Civ. Code, art. 2159, et seq., it is provided that “ the debtor of several debts has a right to declare, when he makes a payment, what debt he means to discharge. The debtor of a debt which bears interest or produces rents, cannot without the consent of the creditor, impute to the reduction of the capital, any payment he may make, when there is interest or rent due. When the debtor of several debts has accepted a receipt, by which the creditor has imputed what he has received to one of the debts especially, the debtor can no longer require the imputation to be made to a different debt, unless there have been fraud imputation, the payment must be imputed to the debt which the debtor had at the time most interest in discharging of those that are equally due, otherwise to the debt which has fallen due, though less burdensome than those which are not yet payable. If the debts be of a like nature, the imputation is made to the less burdensome; if all things are equal, it is made proportionally.” This is a translation of the Code Napoléon, art. 1253-1256, slightly altered. See Poth. Obl. n. 528, translated by Evans, and the notes.