Bushrod Washington

“ Let it be admitted that these papers bound the defendant to abstain from making a particular defence to which the law entitled him, and to cause the action intended to be commenced against him to be docketed, so as not to delay the plaintiffs, could the jury from thence infer with any legal propriety, either that the necessity of proving notice of the non-payment of the notes would be dispensed with, or the fact, that the notice left at the store of James Corcoran was received by the defendant at any time, much less in due time? ”

“ Was the court wrong in refusing to give this instruction?
Presumptions, from evidence given in a cause of the existence of particular facts, are in many, if not in all cases, mixed questions of law and fact. ”

“ Overlooking for the present, the circumstance that the notary had been in the habit of leaving notices for the defendant at the store, it must be admitted that the service of the notice in question at the store, was no more a compliance with the requisition of law, than if it had been delivered to the son in the street or elsewhere, or left at his dwelling house.
Is the case then altered by the circumstance just mentioned? We think not. It seems from the evidence, that the store never was, at any period, the place appointed for the delivery of notices or other communications to the defendant. ”