108 Ga. 556 | Ga. | 1899
The plaintiff in error instituted an action against G. W. Jones and W. W. Campbell, in the superior court of Dade county, to recover a judgment on an unconditional promissory note. The note was dated December 12, 1893, and payable to J. R. Torryson, or bearer. The defendants pleaded, that the note was given for a sulky plow which was worthless, which fact was known to the payee and the holder, and so knowing they did not communicate such information; that the payee represented, prior to the execution of the note, that he would also furnish a cultivator to go with the plow, which he has failed to do; that they would not have signed the note except for such promise; that the plaintiff is not a bona fide holder of the note without notice and for a valuable consideration, but he knew that the note had been given for the plow; that the payee represented to the defendants,, before the execution of the note, that the plow was made of a certain kind of wood, and, because of the paint which covered
For the plaintiff, Sells testified. He sold the note sued on, to the plaintiff, before it was due, for the full value of the note, less 10 per cent. So far as witness knows, plaintiff had no knowdedge that there were any defenses or objections to the payment of the note. He represented to him that the note was solvent and would be paid at maturity. Sold all the notes he held in Dade county, to the plaintiff. He had seen the plows used, and they gave satisfaction. The plaintiff testified that he purchased the note sued on, from Sells. Paid face .value for it, less ten per cent, before it was due; and at the time had never heard nor knew of any defense or objection to the note. At the time he purchased this, he also bought other
Complaint is made in the motion for new trial, that the presiding judge admitted in evidence, over the objection of the plaintiff’s counsel, testimony of the defendants to the effect that, before the note was signed, witness had a conversation with the payee, in which the latter agreed that he would furnish defendants a cultivator to apply to the sulky plow, which was to be furnished the following spring at the price of eight dollars, and that no cultivator had been furnished. This evidence was clearly inadmissible under the facts in this case. The note sued on, being payable to Torryson or bearer, was negotiable by delivery. Evidence introduced by the plaintiff tended to show that he purchased this note before its maturity, for value and without notice. This may not have been true, but it was incumbent on the defendants- to show that it was not true. This they entirely failed to do; and, in the absence of such proof, it was incompetent to show, as against the bearer taking the note before maturity and without notice, that there had been a failure of consideration. If persons will make contracts of this character, and enable the payee to get their obligations in the hands of innocent holders, they must abide their contracts, although they get no value for their promises to pay. It seems from the evidence that the articles they purchased were worthless, and it is doubtless a hardship that they should have to pay for an article of no value; hut when they executed the note in the shape they left it, they put it in the power of the payee to discount it and let it go into the hands of an innocent person who paid his money for it on the faith that the makers were solvent and would observe their
Judgment reversed.