Case ID: ky_33/html/0142-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Chief Justice Robertson", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Sirlott vs. Tandy.
    Covenant.
    [Messrs. Sanders and Depew for pltf: Mr, Morehead and Brown for deft.]
    From the Circuit Court for Gallatin Countv.
    
      June 2.
    A covenant to pay asumirapromissory notes, is assignable,under our statute. The sum to be recovered on an obligation payable in notes, is their value when they ought to have been delivered. But, in the absence of any other proof, a jury rnay infer from the terms— goodnotes, then due, that they were to be equal to money, and their verdict, so found,will stand.
   Chief Justice Robertson

delivered the Opinion of the Court.

Two questions arise in this case: — first, is a covenant to pay a specified sum in promissory notes, then due, assignable? and second, on a writ of enquiry, in an action on the covenant, can a verdict for the nominal amount, without express proof of the value of such notes, be sustained?

First. We can perceive no reason why a covenant to pay in promissory notes,or to assign such notes, is not assignable under our statute, equally with a covenant to convey land, or to pay bank notes.

Second. As the court cannot know judicially, that promissory notes when due are not equivalent with their nominal amount, we cannot say that the verdict is excessive.

The defendant in the action did not oiler to prove, that such notes were not worth their nominal amount, but only asked the court to require the plaintiff to prove their value. There can be no doubt that the value of the notes at the time when they were to be paid or assigned, was the legal criterion of recovery. But as there was no proof tending to show, that they were of less value than their nominal amount, the jury had a right to presume, that they were equal to that amount; sufficient data are furnished by the covenant — to wit “good notes,” to be due when assigned. Upon that general description, the jury had a right to decide as to the value; and this court cannot know judicially, that the assessed value was too high.