53 Ark. 523 | Ark. | 1890
The appellant sued the appellees on a promissory note, whereby they promised, for value, to pay W. W. Hacker or bearer one hundred and fifty dollars four months after the date thereof.
The appellees sought to defeat the recovery on a plea that they had paid to W. W. Hacker, the payee therein, fifty dollars, and that a judgment had been rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction against them as garnishees of Hacker ■ for the balance of the note. The payment set up was made, and the garnishment proceeding instituted, before the maturity of the note. The appellant acquired the note for value and before its maturity, without notice of either of the matters pleaded by the appellees. The case was tried by a jury, and verdict rendered for appellees. On motion of the appellant, the court set the verdict aside.
The cause was re-tried, and a second verdict rendered for appellees, which the court declined to disturb. We are asked to reverse the judgment, as unsupported by the evidence. The payment to the original payee was obviously no defense, for there was no proof, nor even a circumstance to arouse a suspicion, that appellant purchased with any knowledge of that payment.
The only doubt we have felt in the disposition of the case has been as to the time when the appellant acquired the note. He fixes the date of the purchase at a time more than a month before its maturity. The person who transferred it to him fixes the time several months after its maturity, but also several months after this suit was brought. In that he was evidently mistaken, and, as the suit was brought soon after the note matured, we are satisfied that- this discrepancy in dates is due to an inadvertent mistake of the witness, if it does not arise from an error in drafting or copying his deposition. There being no evidence sufficient to disprove that appellant acquired the note before maturity for value and without notice of the defenses set up, we conclude that the verdict is unsupported. It is a hardship that the appellees twice pay a debt if such be the case; they might have averted the hardship by care and prudence. They should not have made payments on the note without seeing a credit endorsed on it which purchasers could see, and if the court improperly rendered judgment against them as garnishees, they mighi have appealed.
For the error above indicated, the judgment will be reversed, and the cause remanded for a new trial.