50 Miss. 326 | Miss. | 1874
delivered the opinion of the court.
To the bill brought by R P. Bay, to enforce an agricultural mortgage, executed to him by Shrader, the latter set up three defenses :
First. A material alteration of the note sought to be collected, by reason whereof it became void.
Second. That Bay did not deliver all the houses and tenements on the leasehold premises, according to his contract, and in consequence of his failure the defendant did not realize as much crop as he would had he got the houses.
Third. The note of Bay, purchased from Mitchell, is set up, by way of counterclaim as offset against his demand.
The Chancellor concurring that the first defense had been established, decreed that the note and mortgage be canceled.
The answer and the proof leave it in uncertainty and doubt, as to the time of pleading the indorsement on the back of the note, and of its erasure. The legal consequence of the alteration of a memorandum or indorsement on the back of the paper depends very much on its character. It is laid down by Parsons' Bills and Notes, vol. 2, 544, that words written on the back of the note are no part of the body thereof, prima facie, but are presumed to be done after the note is completed. . And hence an erasure need not be explained in pursuing a remedy solely on the body of the note. The test of the materiality of such memoranda or indorsement on the back of the instrument is, the time and the intent and purpose of it. If made before or at the time of the execution of the instrument, it may be parcel of it, and may control the obligation in some important particular.
In the early case of Brooke v. Smith, Moor, 679, which was debt upon an obligation to save harmless certain lands from all incumbrances made by the obligor, upon the back, was a memorandum, that the condition should not extend, to an extent of a statute acknowledged by the obligor to a certain person. Here the memorandum was parcel of the condition — being a written
In this case the words written on the back of the note and •signed by Bay, which have been erased, by lines drawn across them, are to the effect that two hundred and fifty dollars are to be paid January 1, 1872, and the like sum January 1, 1873. If that indorsement was made before the note was signed, it would operate, to divide the note into two payments, and would change the body of the paper, which made the entire $500 fall due January 1st, 1872.
Shrader, in his testimony, gives this account: “After arriving at the magistrate’s office, Bay proposed to write out two notes for .-$500 each, so that the notes would correspond with our written agreement, then he proposed to indorse on the back of the notes that he would wait for the $250 until the first of January, 1873, which he did.” The agreement referred to is dated the 7th of .June, 1871, by which Bay sold out to Shrader his interest in the lease of the Bichland plantation, for the time and on the conditions therein specified, also the use of his teams, wagons, etc., for fjj>500, payable January 1st, 1872, and $500 January 1st, 1873. The evidence is that the two notes of $500 each, were given at the same time with the mortgage, in August, 1871, but were dated so as to correspond with the agreement of purchase, June 7th, 1871. There was no stipulation in this agreement for mort
The most of the margin of the paper upon which the indorsement was written has been torn off, but the name of Bay still appears upon it, is signed to it, with lines of erasure drawn across.
We do not think this paper can be made the foundation of a right to recover, nor do we think, without a cross bill, that the defendant could ask for positive affirmative relief.
It has been more than once held in this court, that if the defendant seeks more than a defeat of th'e relief sought by the complainant on the mortgage, or other instruments, the foundation of his claim — -suchas a cancellation of it or them — so as to set them entirely aside, and thereby prevent the possibility of future annoyance therefrom, be can only obtain such relief by a cross bill.
So much of the decree, therefore, as directs and orders that the “ said mortgage be canceled as to the said cotton seized,” “and that the said note be canceled,” is reversed and set aside; but