144 Ga. 703 | Ga. | 1916
(After stating the foregoing facts.)
The evidence in this case does not. authorize the verdict rendered in favor of the plaintiff, and a new trial should have been granted. Under the uncontroverted testimony the defendant was merely an accommodation indorser and therefore a surety upon the note. It is true the note on its face was payable to him and signed by the maker, George Owens, and it was transferred to the Bainbridge State Bank by Phillips, the transfer being in the following language: “Pot value received I hereby transfer and assign to the Bainbridge State Bank the within note and mortgage, with full recourse on me.” The note was executed and transferred, as is shown by uncontroverted evidence, under the following circumstances: Phillips and Owens went to the bank together, and Owens, addressing the cashier of the bank, requested a loan. The cashier replied that it would be all right if Phillips would “go on the paper” with Owens; and Phillips then and there replied that he would do so. The cashier wrote out the paper, and Owens received the money. Phillips did not receive any of it, nor did he receive anything whatever in consideration of the transaction. Phillips knew that Owens claimed the property described in the mortgage, and was in possession of it. He did not know what had become of this property.
Under the facts just stated, which are not disputed, Phillips was merely an accommodation indorser and consequently a surety upon the note. The evidence offered to establish these facts was admitted apparently without objection. Had objection been duly made, the question could have been raised as to the admissibility of parol evidence to show that the payee of the note, who indorsed it in full, thereby becoming an ordinary indorser, was not in fact an ordinary indorser and bound by his contract as such, but was an accommodation indorser only. But this objection, so far as the record shows, was not made; and we have decided the case upon the record as it stands.