270 Mass. 559 | Mass. | 1930
The defendant is the payee named in a negotiable promissory note dated June 30, 1920, payable in ninety days from date, signed by “Securities Exchange Company Per Chas. Ponzi” as maker. The consideration is stated in the note to be $1,000, and the amount promised to be paid at maturity is $1,500. It was payable at any bank. The case was tried with another based upon a note payable to the order of the defendant’s wife, but concerning which no contention is now made.
The defendant was cashier at one of the mills in Lawrence and a director in certain banks. He testified that before putting any money into the scheme he investigated to find out what sort of business Ponzi was engaged in, and from his investigation he believed money could be made in it; that he had previously made one investment in it of $1,000, and in forty-five days received back $1,500. After he had taken the note in suit he began to doubt the legitimacy of the scheme and sent his son with the two notes to the Ponzi office to get back the money which had been paid for them. At this time, which could have been found to be August 8 or 9, 1920, the Ponzi office had stopped payments and the defendant’s son asked one Cooper, whom he met at that office, if he knew any one interested in the Ponzi notes. Cooper took the son to the plaintiff’s place of business where the son represented to the plaintiff that his father needed money; that the notes were good and were worth $3,200 or more, but would be sold for $2,500; that Ponzi had banks all over the country, and when the notes were due the plaintiff could go to any bank and cash them, and if he did not thus get the money back he could obtain it from the defendant. Arrangements were made for the
The jury were justified in finding that all legal steps required to fix the liability of the defendant had been taken. G. L. c. 107, §§ 109, 114, 119, 126. Hall v. Crane, 213 Mass. 326, 327. There was evidence tending to prove that an involuntary petition in bankruptcy was filed against Ponzi on August 9, 1920. The plaintiff has received from the trustee in bankruptcy certain payments, and it was agreed that if the plaintiff was entitled to recover he was entitled to $1,145 and interest at the rate of six per cent less the various amounts that had been paid him. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff.
There was no error in excluding the offer made at the conclusion of the evidence of a condensed statement of the business dealings of Ponzi from December, 1919, to August 9, 1920, taken from a summary appearing in the case of Cunningham v. Brown, 265 U. S. 1, decided in 1924. The court was asked to take judicial notice of this statement. This was not a matter of law of which the court was required to take judicial notice under St. 1926, c. 168, § 1.
The defendant also contends that the note in suit was given as part of a scheme of Ponzi to defraud, of which the plaintiff had or should have taken notice; that Cooper must be assumed to have known of some infirmity or
The question, whether when the note was negotiated to the plaintiff he had notice of any infirmity in the instrument, was rightly submitted to the jury on all the evidence. Back Bay National Bank v. Brickley, 254 Mass. 261. It does not appear that the exclusion of the questions relating to the action taken by Cooper when he received money, in the Ponzi office, to the kind of business Cooper was engaged in there, and to Ponzi’s business, could have prejudiced the defendant in his substantial rights. Upon the evidence the judge was not required to give the requests relating to
We have not found reversible error in any of the exceptions argued.
Exceptions overruled.