Yoxtheimer v. Keyser
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Writ of error to the Common Pleas of Northumberland. In the court below, this was an appeal from the judgment of a justice of the peace, in which Henry Keyser was the plaintiff and Henry Yoxtheimer was the defendant. Yoxtheimer had assumed to pay a certain judgment against Keyser, for a valuable consideration moving to him from the latter. Without having paid that judgment, Yoxtheimer went into bankruptcy and obtained a discharge.
Read the full summary
Writ of error to the Common Pleas of Northumberland. In the court below, this was an appeal from the judgment of a justice of the peace, in which Henry Keyser was the plaintiff and Henry Yoxtheimer was the defendant. Yoxtheimer had assumed to pay a certain judgment against Keyser, for a valuable consideration moving to him from the latter. Without having paid that judgment, Yoxtheimer went into bankruptcy and obtained a discharge. After that discharge, in a conversation with Keyser and his son Henry, to the inquiry of Keyser if he was going to pay that judgment yet, Yoxtheimer replied that he…
1Per curiam
That the plaintiff in error came as near to fix *366himself by a promise to pay as he could without doing so, is extremely clear; but he seems to have studiously kept himself on the windy side of the law. To an inquiry whether he would pay this debt, he replied that “ he was going to pay it as soon as he got able,” and that he was going to pay all his honest debts, except some in the city.
This, though expressive of an intention, did not constitute an engagement, which is necessary to give legal effect to a moral obligation; it is not enough that there was a recognition of the debt, which, in…
2Cited by2 opinions
- Kravitz v. PovlotskySupreme Court of Pennsylvania · 1938
- McDermott v. SulkinSuperior Court of Pennsylvania · 1943