Fоr decision here is a judgment sustaining a motion for summary judgment in behalf of a defendant who was sued upon his endorsement of a promissory note for a corporation of which he was an officer. This promissory note was supplemented by a confirmatory letter on defendant’s firm business stationery, which is an exegetic element in our decision to reverse the judgment rendered below.
Thе affidavit of the plaintiff’s president declared he had personally obtained the signatures of defendant to a completed promissory note with defendant signing the completed printed form for the maker corporation as an officer on a debt owed by the company for building supplies and on the reverse thereof as his personal guarantee. Contemporaneously and dated the same day a letter was typed by him on the defendant’s firm stationery reading as follows: "In consideration for your not placing for collection with your attorney the аmount which I owe you, $2,803.48, I am signing and endorsing a demand *430 note in that amount this date. I understand also that you and I will agree on amount to be paid in weekly instalments not later than March 27, 1970, and payments to bеgin on that date and to continue until the full amount is paid. Such amount will not be less than $100 per week nor more than $200 per week. Amounts larger can be paid when funds permit.”
The photocopy оf this letter in the record shows a typed line containing his personal signature with the typed name of defendant below with no reference to the corporation. On this letter there also appears the typed word "accepted” followed by the signature of plaintiff’s president above his typed name.
Pertinent portions of defendant’s affidavit stated: "In my capacity as secretary/treasurer I signed my name to a blank document which is now described as a promissory note . . . with the understanding that the same was to acknowledge the corporate debt of Maxwell & Sons Manufacturing Company, Inc. and the receipt by the corporation of the materials purchased . . . that it was my understanding that when the same was completed it would reflect my intentiоn that I was signing in my corporate capacity . . . that I placed my signature upon a letter . . . composed and typed by Donald L. Bosshardt for the purpose of setting forth the manner in which the сorporation would repay Maxey-Bosshardt . . . that it was not my intent to place my signature in said letter as to cause me to be personally liable for the corporate debt.” Therе was also an averment that he had received no consideration.
Although defendant’s affidavit was limited to his versions of the front of the promissory note and to the letter his deposition takеn upon cross examination as an adverse party stated the following as to his signature on the back or reverse: "Q. When you did sign this note, what was filled in? A. I think it was blank but I am not positive but he said it was just to prove that I had gotten the material.”
*431 The transcript shows the document to be a printed form of promissory note usually obtained in stationery stores. Concerning the letter there is this significant testimony frоm the deposition: "Q. It also bears Mr. Bosshardt’s signature, doesn’t it? A. Yes. Q. And did you see him sign this on that date? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you read this before you signed this, Plaintiff’s Exhibit No. 2, this letter (indicating)? A. There was something other that he left blank, and I’m not рositive on this thing. Q. You did sign this letter after he typed it, didn’t you (indicating)? A. Yes, that is my signature (indicating).”
The three-page order of the trial judge shows his careful and scholarly study of the case. Relying upon the authority оf
Mason v. Blayton,
1. The trial court’s cоrrect ruling on three of the four legal issues has lightened the labors of this court and lessened the length of this opinion by limitation to the single matter herein considered: Does there exist an issuable fаct for determination by a jury?
We recognize that the question of fraud is one which is normally for a jury to determine including whether there has been the required exercise of reasonable diligence to ascertain the truth.
Elliott v. Marshall,
This so-called "blind reliance” doctrine was established by
*432
Chief Justice Richard B. Russell
1
in
Feingold v. McDonald Mtg. & Realty Co.,
When our Supreme Court in
B. E. Robuck, Inc. v. Walker,
"One having the capacity and opportunity to read a written
*433
contract, and who signs it, not under any emergency, and whose signature is not obtained by trick or artifice of the other party, can not afterwards set up fraud in the procurement of his signature to the instrument.”
Truitt-Silvey Hat Co. v. Callaway & Truitt,
In the case under consideration there was no confidential relationship between the seller of mеrchandise and the defendant officer of the buyer corporation. Defendant’s contention that his signatures on the front of the promissory note and on the reverse side were intended to serve as acknowledgment for the corporation’s receipt of the merchandise are rebutted by the front being the usual printed promissory note form and general knowledge that thе reverse side of such printed forms is used for endorsements of such obligations. It is well known that normal business procedures include assumption of individual liability by officers of their family corporation liabilities. Regardless of defendant’s subjective intentions in signing the letter on his firm’s letterhead, it cannot serve to contradict the language which states specifically, "I am signing and endorsing a demand notе in that amount this date,” with his signature above the line containing his typewritten name and with the signed acceptance thereon of the plaintiff.
2. A motion for summary judgment is designed to provide a prompt and inexpensive method of disposing of any cause where the pleadings, depositions, and affidavits clearly show there is no issue of material fact, although the allegations of thе pleadings standing alone may raise such an issue.
Dillard v. Brannan,
We recognize there is а reluctance to grant summary judgments. This hesitation has existed ever since creation of this procedure in the 1855 English Summary Procedure on Bills of Exchange Act (18 & 19 Vict. c. 67). Nevertheless, if its value as a tool for improving the administration of justice through early disposition of cases without the necessity of having counsel and litigants prepare for a full-scale test and to serve as an adjunсt to our invaluable modern discovery procedures, it is essential that in today’s lingo we "tell it like it is.” Where, as here, a party is the sole witness in his own behalf and so has naturally presented his casе in its most favorable light and such showing discloses his defense has no legal validity, it is incumbent upon the courts to rule adversely to him without further ado.
3. "The purpose of the Summary Judgment Act of 1959 is to eliminate thе necessity for a trial by jury where, giving the opposing party the benefit of all reasonable doubts and all favorable inferences that may be drawn from the evidence, there is no genuine issuе as to any material fact, and the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.”
Holland v. Sanfax Corp.,
There being no genuine dispute of the facts in this case, the summary judgment for plaintiff should have been sustained..
Code Ann.
§110-1203;
Lampkin v. Edwards,
*435
Judgment reversed.
Notes
One of the three great judges who constituted the first bench of this court upon its establishment in 1906. He was the father of the late U. S. Senator, Richard B. Russell, Jr., whose greatness has now been memorialized by а grateful nation giving his name to the Senate Office Building in Washington, D. C., and of Robert L. Russell, who served as Judge of the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia and later as Judge of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The latter’s son, Robert L. Russell, Jr., served on this bench from 1961 until his untimely death in 1965. Inspiration is derived from reading the memorials of the grandfather in