Towler v Chatterton
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 20 November 1829 |
| Date | 20 November 1829 |
| Court | Court of Common Pleas |
English Reports Citation: 130 E.R. 1280
IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, AND OTHER COURTS
S. C. 8 L. J. C. P. (O. S.) 30. Followed, R. v. Leeds and Bradford Railway, 1852, 21 L. J. M. C. 195.
. 2 1280 TOWLER V. CHATTERTON 6 BINO. W, [258] towler v. chatterton. Nov. 20, 1829. [S. C. 8 L. J. C. P. (0. S.) 30. Followed, B. v, ieeds and Bradford Railway, 1852, 21 L. J. M. C. 195.] Plaintiff sued in Hilary term, 1829, on a debt which accrued more than six yeara before : Held, that the 9 G. 4, c. 14, which came into operation on the 1st January 1829, precluded him from recovering on an oral promise to pay the debt, made by Defendant in February 1828. Assumpsit for the agistment of cattle. The action was commenced in Hilary term 1829. At the trial before Best C. J., Lincoln Lent assizes, it appeared that the debt was, at the time the action commenced, of more than six years' standing, but that in February 1828 the Defendant said to the Plaintiffs brother, "I owe your brother seven or eight pounds, and if I do, he shall have it ; I wish that nobody should lose any thing; by me." And at another time, " Your brother Ned wants seven or eight pounds from me : we mtst settle it. Nobody shall lose by me." The jury held this to be a promise to pay. On the part of the Defendant it was objected, that by the 9 G. 4, c. 14, which passed May 9, 1828, but by section 10 was to commence and take effect on the 1st of January 1829, it is enacted, " that in actions of debt, or upon the case, grounded on any simple contract, no acknowledgment or promise by words only shall be deemed sufficient evidence of a new or continuing contract, whereby to take any case out of the operation of the said enactments (statute of limitations, 21 Jac. 1, c. 16) or either of them, or to deprive any party of the benefit thereof, unless such acknowledgment or promise shall be made or contained by or in some writing, to be signed by the party chargeable thereby." The learned Chief Justice nonsuited the Plaintiff, on the ground that the promise should have been in writing, giving to the Plaintiff leave to move to set the nonsuit aside. Accordingly Merewether Serjt, in Easter term last, moved the [259] Court for that purpose, contending that the act did not apply to promises made before the 1st of January 1829 ; there was no express provision to give it a retrospective effect ; and without such a provision the Court would not sanction a construction which all the text writers on law bad deprecated as productive of injustice. Tius Blacks tone, after reprobating the imperfect promulgation of laws, adds, "There is still a more unreasonable method than this, which is called making laws ex post facto," - " All law should be, therefore, made to commence in futuro," &c. 1 Bl. Com. 46. And it hag been expressly laid down that a statute made in the affirmative, without any negative express or implied, does not take away the common law. 4 Bao. Abr. 641, Lord Coke, in commenting on the statute of Gloucester, 6 Ed. 1, c. 78, s. 3, at the words "if a man alien a tenement," says, "This extendeth to alienation, made after the statute, and not before ; for it...
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