MONEY PAID. The technical name of a declaration in assumpsit, in which the plain tiff declares far money paid for the use of the defendant.
When one advances money for the benefit of another with his consent, • or at his ex press request, although he be not benefited by the transaction, the creditor may recover the money in an action of assumpsit declar ing for money paid for the defendant ; Has singer v. Solms, 5 S. & R. (Pa.) 9. But one cannot by a voluntary payment of another's debt make himself creditor of that other; Jones v. Wilson, 3 Johns. (N. Y.) 434; Weakley v. Brahan, 2 Stew. (Ala.) 500; Town of Rumney v. Ellsworth, 4 N. H. 138; Appeal of Breneman, 121 Pa. 641, 15 Atl. 650. In order to enable on& who has paid money to the use of another, to maintain an action for money paid, two things are essential: a legal liability on the part of the defendant to pay the original demand, and his antecedent request, or subsequent promise to pay ; Beard v. Horton, 86 Ala.
202, 5 South. 207.
Assumpsit for money paid will not lie where property, not money, has been given or received; Morrison v. Berkey, 7 S. & R. (Pa.) 246; Greathouse v. Throckmorton, 7 J. J. Marsh. (Ky.) 18. But see Ainslie v. Wilson, 7 Cow. (N. Y.) 662, 17 Am. Dec. 532. Nor will an action lie to recover back money paid voluntarily with a full knowledge of the facts and circumstances ; Lewis v. Hughes, 12 Colo. 208, 20 Pac. 621; Gilliam v. Alford, 69 Tex. 267, 6 S. W. 757.
But where money has been paid to the defendant either for a just, legal, or equi table claim, although it could not have been enforced at law, it cannot be recovered as money paid. See MONEY HAD AND RECEIVED.
The form of declaring is for "money paid by the plaintiff for the use of the defendant and at his request"; 1 M. & W. 511.