Worth v. . Stewart

Citations

• 29 S.E. 579
• 122 N.C. 258
• 1898 N.C. LEXIS 238

Syllabus

<p>Public Printers — ■Accounts for State Printing — State Examiners — Finding—Estoppel—Recovery of Money Paid Through Mistake — Pleading—Demand. ■</p> <p>1. The examiners provided for in Section 8622 of The Code, whose duty it is to examine and certify to the correctness of accounts for public printing, are not arbitrators or a special tribunal with such powers and jurisdiction as to make their certificate of correctness of the accounts a judgment binding, as an estoppel, upon the State.</p> <p>2. The State may, like an individual, recover money wrongfully paid under a mistake of fact; and, hence, where examiners of pub-lie printing, through a mistake of fact, certified to the correctness of accounts for public printing and the State Auditor, in ignorance of the facts, issued warrants therefor, and the State Treasurer, in like ignorance, paid the same, the State may maintain its action to recover the money so paid.</p> <p>3. Where a complaint in an action by the State to recover money wrongfully paid to the defendants through mistake, alleged that the defendants “wrongfully, unlawfully and unjustly withhold from the State” the large amount alleged to bo due; Held that a demand on the defendants and their refusal to pay were substantially and sufficiently alleged.</p>