Hendry v. Benlisa

Citations

• 37 Fla. 609

Syllabus

<p>1. The generic term “money” covers everything that by common consent represents property and passes as money in current business transactions, and tíre payment of a debt or judgment during the late Civil War in Confederate money and acoepted; will be regarded as a full settlement, not subject to be again opened.</p> <p>2. If at the time and place of payment in Confederate money it was generally received in business transactions, and was in fact the current money of the country, an agent’s authority to receive it, in the absence of directions to the contrary from a resident principal, will be presumed.</p> <p>3. The receipt of money due on a judgment by an officer authorized by law to accept it will satisfy the debt.</p> <p>4. Clerks of the Circuit Court were not authorized by statute in this State in 1864 to receive payments of judgments, or to accept money on judgments, as paid into the registry of the court, without a judicial order for that purpose, and the payment to such officers on a judgment,. without prior authority or subsequent ratification on the part of the judgment creditor, was no payment to him.</p> <p>5. Money made on execution can, by statute, be paid to an attorney of record of a party in whose favor the execution issued, but such attorney has no authority by virtue of such relation to authorize a Clerk of the Circuit Court in his official capacity and standing in no previous relationship of agency to the attorney, or the judgment creditor, to accept money on a judgment.</p> <p>6. A contract for' the purchase of real estate was made in 1854, payments to be in three annual installments; the purchaser did not go into possession, nor make any improvements; suit was instituted and judgment obtained on the purchase money notes in 1863, and no valid payment of the judgment was made during the late Civil War, nor any effort to pay since, and the land has greatly enhanced in value and the purchasers become insolvent: Held, That specific performance of t