Carroll v. Forsyth

Citations

• 69 Ill. 127

Syllabus

<p>1. Limitations—new promise to take case out of the bar. To remove the bar of the Statute of Limitations, it is incumbent on the plaintiif to prove an express promise to pay the money, or a conditional promise with a performance of the condition, or an unqualified admission that the debt is due and unpaid, nothing being said or done at the time rebutting the presumption of a promise to pay. It must be of such a character as to clearly show a recognition of the debt, and an intention to pay it.</p> <p>2. Same—promise to pay by implication. If there be no express promise, but a promise is to be raised by implication of law from the acknowledgment of the party, the acknowledgment must contain an unqualified and direct admission of a previous subsisting debt which the party is liable and willing to pay. If there be accompanying circumstances which repel the presumption of a promise or intention to pay, or if the expression be equivocal, vague and indeterminate, leading to no certain conclusion, but at best to probable inference, which may affect different minds in different ways, they can not go to the jury as evidence of a new promise, to revive the cause of action.</p> <p>3. Where the promise relied on to remove the statutory bar was not made to the person claiming an indebtedness to him, but to one from whom he had borrowed money, to repay him such loan, and contained no acknowledgment of any indebtedness, and the promise was not shown to have been made in pursuance of an agreement between the debtor and the creditor, or for the express purpose of paying what the defendant owed the plaintiff, and it could be as readily presumed that the promise was intended as a gratuity or as a loan, as that it was intended as a payment, it was held insufficient to take the case out of the statutory bar.</p> <p>4. Same —promiseto a stranger not sufficient. An express acknowledgment of indebtedness made by a debtor to one not an agent of the creditor, and who is in no way intereste