51 Mo. App. 264 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1892
This is an action on a negotiable promissory note purporting to have been executed by defendant Petifish, at Carthage, Missouri, December 20, 1889, whereby defendant promised, one year after the date thereof, to pay to the order of W. B. Pallett & Co. the sum of $125. The defendant interposed the defense of non estfackmi, but at the trial admitted the signature to the instrument to be his and sought to show that he was fraudulently induced to sign the paper by an agent •of the payees; that said agent procured defendant’s signature to the note on the pretense that it was a duplicate copy of a contract appointing defendant the agent of said Pallett & Co. for the sale of a. patent fence. It stands undisputed that plaintiff Cowgill is a bona fide purchaser of the note before maturity and for value. The cause was tried before a jury, with verdict and judgment for the defendant, and plaintiff has appealed.
After a careful review of the evidence — that contained in the abstract furnished by plaintiff, as well as
Briefly stated, the evidence for defendant shows that a party (an entire stranger to defendant and claiming to be the representative of Pallett & Co., fence manufacturers) approached defendant and induced him to undertake the agency for the sale of a patent-fence in defendant’s vicinity. After some negotiation defendant consented, and the stranger submitted some papers to be signed, which it was said was only a contract of agency, and which defendant was asked to sign in duplicate. Defendant examined, he says, one of these papers and then signed two, believing on the representations of the stranger that he had signed the one instrument — the agency contract — in duplicate, and nothing else. It is clear, however, that one of the instruments thus executed was the negotiable instrument here sued on. Defendant was possessed of the ordinary faculties, was able to read and write, and did read a portion of the papers then signed, but trusted to the representations of the stranger as to the contents of' the instrument now in controversy.
Now we had in First Nat. Bank v. Stanley, 46 Mo. App. 440, facts similar to those here to deal with, and we quote here as there: “That where it appears that the
The courts thus give full scope to that just rule, that, if one of two innocent parties must suffer, the loss will be visited upon him whose negligence has brought it about. This now is the prevailing rule in such cases. 1 Daniel on Negotiable Instruments [4 Ed.] sec. 850. The defendant had abundant opportunity of knowing the contents of the instrument he signed. He carelessly failed to avail himself thereof, and it would now be manifest injustice to permit him to defeat the note in the hands of this innocent holder who paid value therefor.
The judgment will then be reversed, and the cause remanded, with directions to the lower court to enter a judgment for the plaintiff for the amount of the note, interest and costs.