99 Mass. 179 | Mass. | 1868
It appears from the bill of exceptions that the
The subsequent indorsement of the note to the plaintiff by the administrator of Skolfield, although written above the name of Butler & Co., could not affect the obligation of the parties already established. The cases upon which the defendant relies, and which have held that the contract which appears to be made by a party to a note, by the manner in which his name is affixed to it, cannot be varied or qualified by parol evidence, will all be found on examination to be cases in which it was held that the condition of the note when it was first delivered as a binding and valid contract is the real test; and that it is not allowable to prove by paroi that a different contract was intended from that which the note itself and the position of the several names upon it would then indicate. Clapp v. Rice, 13 Gray, 403. Stimson v. Silloway, and Powers v. Eastman, Ib. 405, note. Prescott Bank v. Caverly, 7 Gray, 217. Wright v. Morse, 9 Gray, 337. Slawson v. Boring, 5 Allen, 340. So a party who puts his name upon a note after it has once been negotiated can 5>nly be held to the contract which his signature imports, upon such a note as it was when he put his name upon it. But his signature, wherever placed, cannot change the obligation of any other parties to the note, whose signatures had been previously affixed, and whose contract had already become complete and obligatory by the delivery of it as an executed instrument. Howe v. Merrill, 5 Cush. 80.
The case most nearly like the one at bar, and very closely resembling it, is Pearson v. Stoddard, 9 Gray, 199. That was an action upon a promissory note, against Stoddard and Whithead
Exceptions sustained.