Case ID: scl_13/html/0398-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Gantt\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

George A. Stockman vs. John Riley.
    Notice of non-payment must be given to one who indorses a note after it becomes due, as to an indorser of a note before it becomes due.— f
      
    
    THIS was an action against the defendant, as indorser ®f a note after it became due. No notice of non-payment 'to the indorser was proved on the trial, and on the charge of the presiding judge that the note having been indorsed after due, such notice was not necessary, a verdict was given for the plaintiff; and among a variety of other grounds misdirection to the jury in the foregoing particular, was relied on for a new trial.
    
      O'Neal $? Johnson, for the motion.
    
      Caldwell, contra.
    
      
      
         — Vide Course & McTarlane vs. Shackelford, f2 JVott & McCord, 283.J Poole vs. Tolleson, fl McCord, 199.J
    
   Mr. Justice Gantt

delivered the opinion of the court:

The charge of the presiding judge in drawing a discrimination between a note indorsed before and after due, so far as respects demand and notice, has no foundation in law for its support. The same reason why diligence should be observed exists as forcibly in the case of a note indorsed after due that does when the time of payment has not arrived. I had almost said in a greater degree, for if the circumstance of the time having passed when payment should have been made, goes to lessen the credit of the drawer from supposed inability to pay, then the' person upon whose credit the holder relies, should be promptly informed of non-payment, and ought not to be lulled by the laches of the holder into a false security that the note has been paid.

As an instrument negotiable in its nature, a contract by the indorsee to take it, although after due, imposes upon him the duty of using the same diligence which is required by the law in transactions of this nature.

The motion for a new trial, on the grounds of misdirect tion, is granted.

Justices Colcock and Richardson, concurred.