82 N.C. 478 | N.C. | 1880
The note sued on, "One day after date I promise to pay J. C. Palmer five hundred and twenty-five dollars, for value received. Witness my hand and seal. June 3rd, 1863. (Signed) J. R. Love, [Seal]," was endorsed to the plaintiff. Under the instructions of the court, there was a verdict for plaintiff, judgment, appeal by defendant.
This is an action founded on a bond for five hundred and twenty-five dollars, dated in June, 1863, which was given in consideration of various articles of personal property. On appeal to this court heretofore it was ruled that the judgment of the court below was erroneous, in that, the value of the property was held to be in law the true measure of the contract. See
The defendant asked the court to instruct the jury that the value of the confederate money in which the note by presumption was solvable, must be fixed by the legislative scale. This instruction, the judge refused, but instead thereof told the jury, that the scale of depreciation was unconstitutional, and not binding on them in fixing the value of the contract and was not the best evidence, but that they might consider it together with the value of the property for which the bond was given, and also the testimony of the witnesses introduced as to the value of the confederate money in the neighborhood, in determining the value of the contract.
It was decided in King v. W. W. R. R. Co., removed from this court to the supreme court of the United States and reported in
But His Honor holding the legislative scale to have been declared void by the supreme court of the United States in King's case supra, admitted proof of the value of the property as a better guide to the value of the note sued on than the scale, and although he cautioned the jury not to take the value of the property as fixing the value of the note, but only as evidence to be considered in connection with other proofs, and upon a view of the whole to find the value of the confederate money at the date of the contract, still its admission was contrary to the spirit of the decision inKing's case. The value of the property given in evidence was the controlling evidence and diverted the minds of the jury from all enquiry into its equivalent value in gold and silver, which ought to have been found as the value of the note.
This mode of ascertaining the value of confederate money with reference to gold and silver was approved in the case of Thorington v. Smith, 8 Wallace, 1, and our scale act embodies a valuation of confederate money with reference to the same standard, and it not only has not been held void in King's case, but from its consistency with the principles declared inThorington v. Smith, supra, we assume will never be. *481
The scale made in pursuance of the ordinance of the convention of 1865, by the acts of 1865-'66, ch. 39, § 1, applies by presumption to all contracts made during the war, subject to evidence of their execution with a different intent, and it has been pronounced constitutional in this court and acted on as such in all the cases which have arisen under the act. It embodies the mode of valuation precisely which received the sanction of the supreme court of the United States in Thorington v. Smith, and provides a measure of the value of confederate currency for every month in each year during the war, fair in itself and of convenient application, and in legal effect the ordinance of the convention requiring the adoption of a scale by the legislature, and the act establishing the scale, require its application as a measure to all executory contracts coming within its scope.
We hold, therefore, that His Honor was in error in receiving proof of the value of the property, but should have submitted it to the jury to find the value according to the legislative scale.
The judgment of the court below is reversed, and this will be certified to the end that a new trial may be had.
Error. Venire de novo.