Case ID: watts-serg_8/html/0138-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Huston, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Kramer against M’Dowell.
    A notice of the protest of a bill of exchange to be given by one to another who resides in the same city, must be served personally or by leaving it at his house or place of business: depositing it in the post-office directed to him, is not sufficient.
    ERROR to the District Court of Allegheny county.
    Allen Kramer against A. N. M’Dowell. This was an action to recover the amount of a bill of exchange drawn at Pittsburgh by William Seely on Benjamin Naglee of Philadelphia, for $250, payable to the order of the defendant, A. N. M’Dowell, forty days after date, who endorsed the same to the plaintiff. The bill was duly protested at Philadelphia for non-payment, and notice thereof to the drawer and endorsers forwarded by mail to the drawer at Pittsburgh, who enclosed the notice for the endorser, A. N. M’Dowell, and deposited it in the post-office at Pittsburgh, directed to him at that place, where he resided. The question was whether this was sufficient notice. The court below (Shaker, President) decided that it was not.
    
      Dunlop, for the plaintiff in error,
    cited 1 Hill 263.
    The court declined to hear the'counsel on the other side.
   The opinion of the Court was delivered by

Huston, J.

The reports are full of cases as to what is or is not notice of the protest of a note or bill; and would seem to have gone as far as public convenience or private individual justice to the parties would require. These rules were made for mercantile or business men, who are in the habit of drawing notes or bills, and receiving letters by mail; and to apply them to a farmer, who never endorsed a note before, and does not receive a letter by mail once in three months, is hard enough, if not more than enough; but we are asked to go one step beyond all former cases. All of them say if the parties live in the same town the notice must be served on the person to be affected, personally or left at his house or place of business. The next step would be to let the notary put all notices to persons in the same city in the post-office, even where the person to be notified lived next door to him. We leave the rule as we found it; that in the same town or city, at least, unless when they become larger than Pittsburgh, the notice to be given by one inhabitant to another must be served personally or by leaving it at the house or place of business of the person to be notified.

Judgment affirmed.