Barnes v. Pickett Hardware Co.

Citations

• 203 Pa. 570
• 53 A. 378
• 1902 Pa. LEXIS 761

Syllabus

<p>Statute of limitations — Promissory notes — Payment on account — Payment of lien.</p> <p>A partial payment stops the running of the statute of limitations, because it is an acknowledgement of the debt as an existing obligation, from which the law necessarily implies a promise to pay. Any incident of the payment which rebuts the acknowledgement or the implication of a promise to pay the rest of the debt will prevent its operation as a bar.</p> <p>A provision in a promissory note given for a balance of purchase money, that it should be due in six months, if certain liens on the property were then removed and if not then “as and when” they should be removed, does not enlarge the statute of limitations. It begins to run at the end of the six months, and the disability to sue until the liens are removed is not a privilege of the payee to delay its running, but an obligation precedent to suit by him, a disability of his own making, removable at any time by his own act.</p> <p>Where a promissory note given for a balance of purchase money of real estate, is made payable in six months provided that certain liens ‘ ‘ are then paid or removed, and if not then so removed, payment is to be made as and when they are removed,” and none of the liens are removed within six years from the date when the note became due, except one which the maker was compelled to pay under compulsion of suit, the note is barred by the statute of limitations. In such a case the payment of the one lien was a payment distinctly on a different debt, one not due to the payee or holder of the note, and not owing by the maker at all, but collectible from his property through the burden of a lien.</p>