Northrop v. Smith

Headnote

Statute of limitations—When it begins to bun.

The plaintiff delivered to defendants two registered United States bonds endorsed in blank, and they gave him a receipt by which they acknowleged the receipt of the bonds, describing them specifically by number, and agreed to return them to plaintiff upon demand. Held, that a special demand was necessary to set the statute of limitations running.

Appeal from judgment entered upon the verdict of a jury, and from order denying defendants’ motion upon the minutes for a new trial.

On December 21, 1868, the plaintiff was the owner of two United States registered bonds, which bonds were for the sum of $5,000 each, and numbered 2036 and 2037; on said day the plaintiff, at the request of defendants, delivered the bonds, endorsed by him in blank, to a firm composed of the defendants herein and one Starbuck, now dead, and the defendants gave him a receipt or certificate by which they acknowledged the receipt of the bonds, describing them specifically by number, and agreed to return them to plaintiff upon demand.

This transaction took place at the city of New York, where the defendants were' doing business as Smith, Clarke Co.

The bonds were taken by the said firm for the purpose of hypothecating them to-obtain a loan; the bonds were so used for some time by the firm until it went into liquidation.

The plaintiff, in the month of June, 1886, demanded of the defendants that they should give him back his bonds; the defendants refused to do so, and shortly after .this demand and refusal this action was brought to recover the value of the bonds.

William W. Clark, one of the defendants, made no defense; Alfred H. Smith, the other defendant, interposed two defenses, the statute of limitations and a denial that the transaction sued upon was a transaction of the firm, but a transaction between plaintiff and Clark, as an individual.