Case ID: la_17/html/0304-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Martin, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Shipman & Ayres v. Haynes.
    There is no necessity of stating in full the names intended, or the meaning of the letters placed between the names and surnames of the plaintiffs, in the petition.
    "Where a commission is addressed to W. E. notary public, in another State, he is thereby authorized to administer an oath to tho party or witness interrogated, whether his official station as notary authorized him or not. — '16 L. 282 (I.), and cases there noted.
    Appeal from the commercial court of Mew Orleans.
    This is an action by George P. Shipman and Thomas M. Ayres, on four promissory notes subscribed by the defendant, Stewart Haynes.
    The defendant pleaded the general issue, and denied specially that the plaintiffs were the owners of the notes. He averred that they belonged to one William Ayres, who was largely indebted to him; and that they had been put into the plaintiff’s hands with a view to be collected and the proceeds remitted to William Ayres. He prayed that the debt due him by said Ayres be coiripensated against the notes, and that he have judgment in reconvention for the overplus; and that certain interrogatories which he annexes be propounded to the plaintiffs concerning the ownership of the notes and the property of Wm. Ayres therein.
    The plaintiffs in their answers to the interrogatories fully made out then-case, and disproved the defence set up. There was judgment in their favor, and the defendant appealed.
    
      G. B. Duncan for the plaintiffs.
    
      F. Say ms contra.
   Martin, J.

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an action against the maker of four promissory notes. There was an exception to the sufficiency of the petition that it did not set out the full names of the plaintiffs, which was overruled.

[504] The defendant pleaded a general denial; admitted his signature to the notes; and averred that they did not belong to the plaintiffs, but that they were the property of one 'William Ayres, who was largely indebted to him; that the plaintiffs took said notes with a full knowledge that W. Ayres was so indebted. He prayed -that said debt due him might be pleaded in compensation and reconvention. He also propounded interrogatories to the plaintiffs touching the owuership of the notes sued on, and the interest of Wm. Ayres in them, which were answered and sworn to before a notary public in Hew-York. On the trial, the defendant’s counsel objected to the answers of the plaintiffs to the interrogatories, on the ground that there is no evidence of the judicial capacity of the notary to administer an oath. The answers were received because the name of the officer was stated in the commission, and a bill of exception taken to their admission.

There was judgment for the plaintiffs, and the defendant appealed.

I. The exception was properly overruled. The plaintiffs described themselves as George P. Shipman and Thomas H. Ayres. There was no necessity of stating the meaning of the letters placed between their surnames and names of the plaintiffs, such letters have often no meaning at all. An individual desirous of being distinguished from another in his vicinity, bearing the same name and surname, places any letter of the alphabet he pleases before his surname; although it be not the initial of any particular name. The Oode of Practice, art. 172, requires a name and surname, not the names, and surname; so that when a man has two Christian names, the first being the one by which he is most generally known, satisfies the requisites of the law, when the initial of the second is given.

II. The commission under which the plaintiffs’ answers to interrogatories were taken, being directed to “Walter Edwards, notary public in the city oí Hew-York,” authorized him to administer an oath to the parties interrogated, under the authority of the laws of this State, whether his official sta- [506] tion in Hew-York authorized him or not, to administer oaths.

On the merits, the answers to these interrogatories completely destroys the defence set up.

It is therefore ordered, adjudged and decreed, that the judgment of the commercial court be affirmed, with costs.