DESPERATE

Hopeless; worthless. This term is used in Inventories and schedules of assets, particularly by executors, etc., to describe debts or claims which are considered impossible or hopeless of collection. See Schultz v. Pulver, 11 Wend. (N. Y.) 365. Desperate debt. A hopeless debt; an Irrecoverable obligation. Of which there is no hope. 2. This term is used frequently, in making an inventory of a decedent’s effects, when a debt is considered so bad that there is no hope of recovering it. It is then called a desperate debt, and, if it be so returned, it will be prima facie, considered as desperate.