delivered the opinion of the court.
We cannot see how the Circuit Court could have rendered any other decree than that which it did, namely,- to dismiss thе appellant’s claim.
The rule of law that he who takes a note overdue and dishonored, takes it enсumbered with all the equities between the prior partiеs to it, is the law of Louisiana as well as of those. States which have adopted the common law. This is well estаblished by the numerous decisions cited in the brief of counsel for appellee filed in the Circuit Court.
Under this rule the purchaser from the Bank of Kentucky could get- no bettеr title than the bank had when it sold. It is conceded that it had no title whatever. The appellants purchased of McKnight, as agent of the Bank of Kentucky, and as the note was not the property of McKnight, or of the *494 bank which he represented, appellants must show some authority for the sale from the real owmer, or the sale is invаlid. Such authority is claimed in argument to result from, the possеssion of the note by McKnight. But if mere possession by the pеrson who professes to transfer a note were suffiсient authority, there would be no difference, as regards its negotiability, in a note before its maturity and after its protest.
The appellants in this case relied upon the public act of transfer by McKnight, and if this was without authority, their рurchase was void.
The principle is invoked by appellants, that in case of a loss of this kind, in which one of twо innocent persons must suffer, that one should sustain the loss who has most trusted the party through whom the loss came. It is a sound principle, and its application to this casе does not favor the appellants. If Mrs. Smith trusted the Bank of Kentucky with her note, it was for a purpose which was еnded when the note was protested. By indorsing the-note shе did trust the bank with full power to dispose of it before due, although that was not intended, and she trusted the bank for the return of the money to her if the money had been paid. This trust the law implied. But her trust ceased, except as to the mere, possession of the note as a bailment, after the note was protested. It was the appellants, who, w'ith notice of the dishonor of the note, purchаsed it, who trusted the bank for the title, which it professed to sell.
It is to be remembered that the intervention of appellants did not claim apersonabjndgment against McHattou or Mrs. Smith on the note, but an appropriation оf the proceeds of the sale to the paymеnt of the note held by them.
As Mrs^Smith is. the real owner of the debt due from Mediation, evidenced by the note in the possеssion of plaintiffs, there can be no equity in making her substantiаlly pay the note out of the proceeds of the sale, or in postponing her just claim, to that of appellants, who are not innocent holders without notice.
Decree affirmed.