Case ID: scl_10/html/0050-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Johnson, J. Cheves, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Lovel ads. Wartenburgh.
    A demand made on. tie maker of a promissory note on the last day of grace, is sufficient to charge the endorser.
    Tried before Mr. Justice Grijike, at Charleston, January, 1817.
    The defendant was the endorser of a promissory note, for the recovery of which this action was brought by the plaintiff as endorsee. The note had been lodged in the - bank for collection; but on the second day of grace, no demand having been made by that bank, it was withdrawn and lodged in the Planters *and Mechanics’ Bank, and on the same day demand of payment was made of the drawer. The note not having been paid, on the third day of grace it was protested for non-payment. It was also proven, that it was usual for the bank to give three days notice in a demand for payment.
    For the defendant it was insisted, that there was such a laches on the part of the holder, in not lodging it in the bank on the day, or before it became due, and demanding payment, as would discharge the defendant the endorser; and to support this position, the defendant offered in evidence a resolution of the bank, restoring or continuing the drawer’s credit, in consequence of the. note’s not having been lodged in time.
    The presiding Judge rejected this evidence, and. the jury, under his direction, found a verdict for the plaintiff.
    ' The defendant now moved for a new trial, and the defence insisted on in the trial of the cause in the Circuit Court, was made the grounds of this motion.
   The opinion of the Court was delivered by

Crafts, for the motion. Cogdell, contra.

Johnson, J.

To charge the endorser of a promissory note, all that is necessary is to make a demand of the drawer, and to give notice of nonpayment to the endorser, within the time, and in the manner established by mercantile usage. Whether the drawer did or did not retain his credit with the bank, appears to me, therefore, wholly unimportant, whatever might have been the reasons, and was therefore properly rejected. Nor do, I think, that the protest having been made earlier than three days after the demand of payment, of more importance; as in this case it was not indispensably necessary to charge the defendant.

The case, then, is reduced to the single question, whether the demand was or was not made as early as was necessary, in order to charge the defendant as endorser, as there is no pretence on his part, of want of notice of nonpayment. Three days are usually ^allowed by the custom of merchants for the payment of notes, after they become due, according to the time fixed by the note itself; and it is to be presumed that every man, who issues paper, is aware when it becomes due, and that he will make provision for the payment; but as they are a sort of circulating medium, it is incumbent on the person into whose hands they fall, to demand payment, by way of giving notice, when the-note is due. Now, if he has this notice before he is bound to pay it, and before his endorsee could legally demand payment, all the reasons that render a demand necessary, are fully answered.

A demand, therefore, under any circumstances, on the last day of grace, is sufficient to charge the endorser. ■ (Chitty on Bills, 194; and Maxwell on Bills, 163.)

Let the motion for a new trial be dismissed.

Colcock and Gantt, JJ., concurred.

Cheves, J.

I concur in this opinion. But I do not understand the fact to be, that the protest was made earlier than three days after the demand of payment. This fact I understand to be, (the notice given by the bank,) that the note which was given, was lodged for collection after three days of grace commenced. 
      
       See post, 116. 2 MeC. 436.