91 Mo. 677 | Mo. | 1887
This proceeding in the court below was one of equitable garnishment, whereby the original plaintiff, John A. Weber, now deceased, sought to subject a certain promissory note and deed of trust to the payment of certain indebtedness due by one of the defendants, Felix Gr. Harrison, to the original plaintiff, on the ground that Harrison owned one moiety of the promissory note, although the same was made payable
The above gives a sufficient outline of the salient points of this case and affords sufficient basis for the rulings necessary to be made herein. It does not appear that Jno. A. Weber, deceased, had actual notice of the terms and conditions upon which Orten bought the beehive patent and incurred the indebtedness secured by the deed of trust; nor is it material that notice of such a character should have been brought home to him, and this is the reason of it: The note as already seen, was, it is true, a negotiable note, being made payable to W. H. McDaniels or order; but, inasmuch as he had not indorsed it, the lack of .such indorsement rendered the note, to all intents and purposes, the same in the hands of Jno. A. Weber, as if it were a non-negotiable instrument, and it was, therefore, subject to all the equities to which it would have been subject had it been nonnegotiable in form, or had remained in the hands of the original payee. This rule of commercial law is firmly
In consequence of the foregoing, plaintiff’s intestate took not a legal, but only an equitable, title to the note. This being the case, the law of constructive notice carried home to John A. Weber knowledge of the defeasance aforesaid, in so far as to preclude Mm from pleading ignorance of the defeasance. These considerations settle the main point in this case.
In relation to the other points of this case, as, for instance, the failure of consideration, fraud, etc., seeing no reason in this instance for departing from our custom^of deferring somewhat to the trial court in its determination of questions of fact, we shall observe the rule now and affirm the judgment which the defendants recovered in the lower court.