1. Just; proper; regular; lawful; sufficient; as in the phrases “due care,” ” due process of law ,” “due notice.”2. Owing; payable; justly owed. That which one contracts to pay or perform to another; that which law or justice requires to be paid or done.3. Owed, or owing, as distinguished from payable. A debt is often said to be due from a person where he Is the party owing it, or primarily bound to pay, whether the timefor payment has or has not arrived.4. Payable. A bill or note is commonly said to be due when the time for payment ofit has arrived.The word “due” always imports a fixed and settled obligation or liability, but withreference to the time for its payment there is considerable ambiguity in the use of theterm, as will appear from the foregoing definitions, the precise signification beingdetermined in each case from the context. It may mean that the debt or claim inquestion is now (presently or immediately ) matured and enforceable , or that it maturedat some time in the past and yet remains unsatisfied, or that it is fixed and certain butthe day appointed for its payment has not yet arrived. But commonly, and in theabsence of any qualifying expressions, the word “due” is restricted to the first of thesemeanings, the second being expressed by the term “overdue,” and the third by theword “payable.” See Feeser v. Feeser, 03 Md. 716, 50 Atl. 406; Ames v. Ames, 128Mass. 277; Van Hook v. Walton, 28 Tex. 75; Leggett v. Bank, 24 N. Y. 286; Scudder v.Scudder. 10 N. J. Law, 345; Barnes v. Arnold, 45 App. Div. 314, 61 N. Y. Supp. 85;Yocum v. Allen, 58 Ohio St. 280, 50 N. E. 909; Gies v. Becht- ner, 12 Minn. 284 (Gil.1S3) ; Marstiller v. Ward, 52 W. Va. 74, 43 S. E. 178.
Black’s Law Online Dictionary
