## Facts

- Roger Godemond owed Alice Reme 10 marks sterling on a sealed obligation (a debt “under seal”).
- Alice Reme died, leaving executors John Hale and Thomas Plane.
- Godemond alleged that, after Reme’s death, he paid the debt in full to the executors.
- Godemond further alleged that he trusted the executors would treat the bond as discharged and would deliver up the sealed obligation when he asked for it.
- John Hale later died, leaving Thomas Plane as the sole surviving executor.
- Plane sued Godemond in the Court of Common Pleas to recover on the sealed obligation.
- Godemond petitioned the Chancellor of England for a subpoena to bring Plane into the Court of Chancery and for an injunction restraining Plane from collecting the debt while Chancery considered the matter.
- In response, Plane asserted that Godemond had not paid the debt and asked that the Chancery matter be dismissed with costs.

## Issues

1. May the Court of Chancery intervene to restrain a Common Pleas action on a sealed obligation when the defendant alleges the debt has been paid but the seal is treated at common law as conclusive proof of the debt?
2. Is it against conscience for an executor to press a bond action at law while retaining the sealed instrument after the debtor claims full payment?

## Decision

- Godemond sought equitable process (subpoena) and interim relief (an injunction) to prevent enforcement at law of a bond he claimed had been satisfied.
- Plane answered in Chancery by denying payment and requesting dismissal with costs.
- As presented in Fifoot’s excerpted account, the episode is used to show the kind of situation in which Chancery was asked to restrain a common-law bond action because common-law proof rules treated the sealed obligation as controlling.

## Legal Principles

- At common law, a sealed obligation could function as conclusive evidence of a debt, making it difficult for the obligor to rely on payment if the instrument remained outstanding in the obligee’s hands.
- Equity could be invoked where legal procedure and proof rules risked enforcing a formal right in a way that would allow collection of a debt alleged to have been satisfied.
- Chancery’s tools—subpoena to compel appearance and injunction directed at the litigant (in personam)—could be sought to halt a parallel action at law while the equitable claim of satisfaction was examined.
- A core equitable concern in this setting is preventing an obligee (or executor) from using retention of the bond to demand payment a second time after the debtor asserts that payment has already been made.

## Conclusion

Godemond’s Case (as excerpted in Fifoot) presents a debtor’s appeal to Chancery for a subpoena and an injunction after being sued in Common Pleas on a sealed bond that he claimed had already been paid to the creditor’s executors, illustrating how equity was invoked to prevent enforcement of a bond where common-law formalism treated the sealed instrument as conclusive proof of indebtedness.


Godemond's Case, From C.H.S. Fifoot, History and Sources of the Common Law 324 (1949)