Bower v. Walker

Citations

• 220 Pa. 294
• 69 A. 984
• 1908 Pa. LEXIS 769

Syllabus

<p>Appeals — Assignments of error — Evidence—Practice, Supreme Court— Rule 31.</p> <p>An assignment of error to the exclusion of a paper violates Rule 31, where the assignment fails to set out either the offer or the objection, and does not contain a copy of the paper excluded.</p> <p>Contract — Computation of interest — Evidence—Equity—Mutual accounts.</p> <p>In an equity suit where the issue turns upon the proper method of computing interest under a contract in writing, a statement of account made seven years prior to the date of the agreement, and referred to in the agreement as showing that to a certain extent the arrangement contemplated by the agreement had been completed, is not admissible as evidence of the proper method of computing interest under the written agreement.</p> <p>On a bill in equity to compel the redelivery of stock held as collateral where it appears that the defendant had made advances to the plaintiffs under a written agreement, by which the dividends from the stock were to discharge the debt in full with interest at six per cent per annum, and the agreement does not state how interest shall be computed, but the defendant applies the dividends as received to the interest which had accrued to date, and the balance in reduction of principal, such method of computation will be adopted by the court if it appears that for a period of nine years, accounts were rendered by the defendant to the plaintiffs based on such method, that the plaintiffs never objected, but secured an extension of the agreement, after which they continued to accept similar statements of account without objection. Such accounts cannot be considered as making up a mutual running account, inasmuch as there is no mutual indebtedness giving-rise to mutual demands, with a right of action to each party against the other.</p> <p>A construction placed upon a contract by the parties will be followed by the courts.</p> <p>Where money is paid upon a debt, it is to be applied first to