Case ID: tex_32/html/0515-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Morrill, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

A. J. Heard v. F. M. Swift.
    1—The plaintiff sued the defendant as an indorser for value of certificates of deposit executed in 1863 by a Confederate States depositary, for a deposit made with him by the defendant of Confederate treasury notes, for the purpose of having the same converted into eight per cent. Confederate coupon bonds. Held, that there was no error in sustaining a general demurrer to the petition.
    Appeal from Refugio. Tried below before the Hon. Wesley Ogden.
    The instruments sued on were in the following form :
    “ (Certificate of Deposit, No. 79.)
    “ Depositary’s Office, Houston, July 23, 1863.
    “ F. M. Swift has this day deposited with me, to be invested in 8 per cent. C. S. coupon bonds, one thousand and five hundred dollars in C. S. Treasury notes—payable to his order, on surrender of this certificate, with interest on bonds from date.
    
      “ James Sorley, Depositary.”
    The defendant indorsed two of these instruments to the plaintiff, who alleged in his petition that he paid the defendant a valuable consideration for the same. The plaintiff alleged that the bonds were never issued, but that by the laws regulating this subject, the interest was to be paid annually in gold, and at the termination of a series of years the bonds themselves were to be paid in gold. And that the petitioner had used due diligence to collect the interest from the Confederate States, but had failed to obtain it; that they had ceased • to exist as a nation or government, so that neither the interest or the bonds could ever be paid; but that the defendant’s indorsement and delivery of the certificates for a valuable consideration made Mm liable to pay to the petitioner in gold the sum of money mentioned in the certificates, with interest.
    The petition proceeded to aver demand on and refusal by the defendant, who, it seems, “did not see it in that light,” and who, therefore, demurred generally to the petition.
    The demurrer being duly argued was sustained by the court, and the plaintiff declining to amend, there was judgment for the defendant, and he appealed.
    The error assigned was that the demurrer was wrongfully sustained, because, first, the government of the Confederate States was a de facto government at the time the defendant indorsed the certificates; and second, that if the contract between the defendant and the Confederate States was illegal, yet the plaintiff was no party to it, and his contract with the defendant was valid and was based on a valuable consideration.
    The suit was brought to the August term, 1869, of the court below.
    
      J. F. Smith, for the appellant.
    No brief for the appellee.
   Morrill, C. J.

The object of this suit was to recover damages for not investing Confederate money in Confederate bonds.

The District Court gave a judgment for the defendant, and we see no error therein.

Affirmed.