View source for Hamilton & Co. v. Urquhart

{{DISPLAYTITLE:''Hamilton & Co. v. Urquhart''}}
[[File:WytheHamiltonVUrquhart1852.jpg|link=Media:WytheDecisions1852HamiltonVUrquhart.pdf|thumb|right|300px|First page of the opinion [[Media:WytheDecisions1852HamiltonVUrquhart.pdf|''Hamilton & Co v. Urquhart'']], in [https://catalog.swem.wm.edu/law/Record/2099031 ''Decisions of Cases in Virginia by the High Court of Chancery, with Remarks upon Decrees by the Court of Appeals, Reversing Some of Those Decisions''], by George Wythe. 2nd ed. (Richmond: J. W. Randolph, 1852).]][[Media:WytheDecisions1852HamiltonVUrquhart.pdf|''Hamilton & Co. v. Urquhart'']], Wythe 295 (1794),<ref>George Wythe, ''[[Decisions of Cases in Virginia by the High Court of Chancery|Decisions of Cases in Virginia by the High Court of Chancery with Remarks upon Decrees by the Court of Appeals, Reversing Some of Those Decisions]],'' 2nd ed., ed. B.B. Minor (Richmond: J.W. Randolph, 1852), 295.</ref> was a brief decision discussing whether a bond was exempt from depreciation under Virginia law.
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==Background==
Responding to the rapidly-plunging value of paper money printed there, the Virginia Assembly passed a law in 1781<ref>An Act Directing the Mode of Adjusting and Settling the Payment of Certain Debts and Contracts, and for Other Purposes, Nov. 1781, in [http://vagenweb.org/hening/vol10.htm 10 The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia] (William Waller Hening ed., Richmond 1822), 471-74.</ref> that reduced the value of all debts incurred after 1777 and payable in paper money; the debt was devalued according to a table based on the date the debt was incurred. 

Wythe does not say who the lender or borrower was in this case, but it seems a fair inference that plaintiff Archibald Hamilton & Co. was the lender; and that defendant William Urquhart (executor of Nathaniel Flemyng's estate) represented the borrower. Flemyng borrowed money from Hamilton over several years before 1777, then Flemyng signed a bond in 1777 promising to repay Hamilton. Hamilton filed a bill with the Chancery Court asking it to make Urquhart pay it the full, not devalued, value of the debt.
==The Court's Decision==
The Chancery Court granted Hamilton's request. Wythe noted that the Virginia law allowed courts to hand down a judgment it deemed "just and equitable" if the court determined that applying the devaluation table to the debt would be unjust.<ref>Ibid., 473.</ref> Wythe determined that the value of paper money during the time Flemyng incurred the debt was not less than its present-day value, so the devaluation table did not apply. 
==References==
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[[Category:Cases]]