This is an action on two promissory notes payable on demand, each for $2,000, bearing interest at the rate of 10 per cent, per annum. The Farmers State Bank of Overton, payee, is plaintiff. Ernest Dowler and Swan Johnson, makers, are defendants. They signed the notes, but duress was pleaded as one of the defenses; Upon a trial of the issues the district court directed a verdict in favor of plaintiff, and from a judgment thereon defendants have appealed.
It is argued, however, that the peremptory instruction was proper because the renewal notes were voluntarily given. It is insisted that the acts of Johnson in signing them amounted to a ratification of the. original transaction. This view cannot be adopted without disregarding evidence of a different import. There is testimony to the effect that the renewals did not amount to a payment or a discharge of the original indebtedness, but were new evidence thereof. From the testimony of Johnson, if believed, the jury might have inferred that the duress which controlled him when he first surrendered his own will to that of plaintiff extended to all the renewals; that in each instance he still thought his son-in-law would be prosecuted criminally if he failed to sign the renewals; that except for the fear inspired by the threats of plaintiff, and the pleading of his wife and daughter, he would not have signed any of the notes; that these influences were wrongfully exerted by plaintiff. It was not for the court to say as a matter of law that the testimony, was untrue or that no such inferences could be drawn. The questions should have been submitted to the jury. Any wrongful influence de
Reversed.
Note — See Contracts, 13 C. J. p. 404, sec. 325; p. 400, sec. 315; p. 769, sec. 964, p. 402, sec. 319; p. 783, sec. 993; Bills and Notes, 8 C. J. p. 1060, sec. 1371.