140 Ga. 302 | Ga. | 1913
S. C. Kennedy sold to L. W. Jones a tract of land for $1,500. Jones paid the purchase-money by paying $463.93 in cash, and by delivering to J. D. Kennedy for S. C. Kennedy two cheeks dated Glennville, Georgia, January 4, 1908, drawn by W. E. Purvis on the People’s Bank of Glenville, Georgia, both payable to the order of B. E. Dowdy, for the sum of $508.02 each, and both indorsed by Dowdy. The checks were delivered on January 6, 1908. On January 16 Kennedy delivered these checks to L. B. Dukes in part payment for a tract of land which he had bought from Dukes in Wayne county, Georgia. Dukes deposited these checks in the Merchants and Farmers Bank of Jesup, January 16, 1908, and they were forwarded to the Citizens and Southern Bank of Savannah, Georgia, which latter bank forwarded them, February 6, 1908, to the bank at Glennville for collection. The payee bank declined to pay the cheeks, because the drawer had no funds sufficient to pay them. It appeared from the evidence that during the interval between the drawing and the presentation of the cheeks the account of W. E. Purvis was overdrawn; but it also appeared that during this time he had made numerous deposits and drawn several
1. The court allowed in evidence a plea filed by the plaintiff Kennedy to a suit brought against him by L. B. Dukes. It appeared from that plea that the checks drawn by Purvis on the Glenn-ville bank in favor of Dowdy, which were delivered by Jones to Kennedy in part payment for the land, had been used by Kennedy in paying for the land bought from Dukes. Kennedy averred in that plea that these checks were delivered to Dukes on January 16, 1908, and were accepted by him as payment for the land purchased. The evidence was objected to on the ground of irrelevancy. The evidence was not irrelevant. It was admitted in that plea that Kennedy was in possession of the checks as late as January 16, and this was relevant to the issue as to whether or not he acted with reasonable promptness in the collection of the checks.
2. A witness was allowed to testify that the drawer of the cheeks delivered by Jones to Kennedy also gave him a check on the same bank at a time between the drawing and the dishonor of the cheeks in controversy, which was paid and credited to his account by the bank. The witness identified this item in his deposit book. The deposit book- was then offered in evidence, and was admitted over objection. The testimony was admissible, and so was the book in connection with the testimony.
3. A check is a commercial device intended to be used as 'a temporary expedient for the actual money. It is generally designed for immediate payment and not for circulation, and therefore it becomes the duty of the holder to present it for payment as soon as he reasonably may; and if he does not, he keeps it at his own peril. Daniels v. Kyle, 5 Ga. 245; Comer v. Dufour, 95 Ga. 378 (22 S. E.
Judgment affirmed.