Coalter v. Hurst

Citations

• 97 Cal. 290
• 32 P. 248
• 1893 Cal. LEXIS 534

Syllabus

<p>Assumpsit — Services Rendered — Plea of Payment— Evidence — Rebuttal —Transactions not Pleaded — Findings. — Where the plaintiff in an action to recover the reasonable value of services rendered to the defendant alleged that he had not been paid for his services, and the defendant pleaded payment therefor, and proved that he had paid to the plaintiff various sums of money, amounting, in the aggregate, to more than the court found to he the value of plaintiff’s services, but failed to show any application of any of the moneys paid by him to a discharge of his obligation for the services rendered by the plaintiff, or to any specific demand of the plaintiff, the plaintiff was entitled to show, in rebuttal, that the moneys paid had in fact been paid by the defendant upon indebtedness to the plaintiff growing out of other transactions, and a finding by the court, stating the account between the parties, and finding that certain of the amounts paid by the defendant were upon account of other transactions specified, and that there was a specified balance due the plaintiff, is not a finding upon issues not raised by the pleadings, but is a finding upon the issue of payment-presented by the answer.</p> <p>Id. — Application of Payments. —Where payments are made by a debtor without applying them to any specific demand, they should be applied by the court to the extinction of obligations earliest in date of maturity.</p> <p>Id. — Appeal — Presumption — Maturity of Obligations at Date of Payments. — Where the record upon appeal does not disclose the dates at which the respective payments were made by the defendant, it will be assumed that it appeared from the evidence that all of the obligations matured prior to those dates, and that the court applied the payments thereon.</p>