Bellows v. Goodall
Supreme Court of New Hampshire
This is an action of debt against the defendant, as executor of his own wrong of one J. Goodall, deceased, to recover the amount of a judgment of the Court of Common Pleas rendered against said J. Goodall before his decease.
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This is an action of debt against the defendant, as executor of his own wrong of one J. Goodall, deceased, to recover the amount of a judgment of the Court of Common Pleas rendered against said J. Goodall before his decease. The defendant objects that the plaintiff cannot recover in this form of action, and contends, that as both the right of action and amount of judgment which may be rendered in the suit, are given and dependent upon the statute, the plaintiff can recover if at all only in an action on the case, or upon a special declaration, setting forth the indebtedness of the deceased,…
1Opinion of the CourtSawyer, J.
It is objected in this case that debt is not the proper form of action for enforcing the liability incurred by an intermeddler with the goods of a person deceased, but that, under the provisions of our statute, ease should be brought, or a special declaration should be framed, setting forth the facts necessary to bring the defendant within the terms of the statute.
*99This objection proceeds upon a misapprehension of the nature of the penalty to which the intermeddler is subjected by the provisions of our statute, and of the relations sustained by him towards the estate and its creditors.
The…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Cotel v. HilliardMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1808