Case Name: R. J. Edwards v. Hambly Fruit Products Co. et al.
Court: Tennessee Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Tennessee
Decision Date: 1915-09
Citations: 133 Tenn. 142
Docket Number: 
Parties: R. J. Edwards v. Hambly Fruit Products Co. et al.
Judges: 
Reporter: Tennessee Reports
Volume: 133
Pages: 142–144

Head Matter:
R. J. Edwards v. Hambly Fruit Products Co. et al.
(Knoxville.
September Term, 1915.)
BILLS AND NOTES. Defenses available against innocent holders.
Under Negotiable Instruments Law (Acts 1899, ch. 94) sec. 60, providing that the maker of a negotiable instrument, by making it, .engages that he will pay it according to its tenor, and admits the existence of the payee and his then capacity to indorse, the innocent holder of a negotiable note may recover thereon, though the payee was a foreign corporation, which, though required to do so, had not complied with the law in respect to filing a copy of its charter of incorporation.
Acts cited and construed: Acts 1899, ch. 94.
Cases cited and approved: Orr’s Administrator v. Orr,'157 Ky., 570; First Nat. Bank of Massillon v. Coughron (Ch. App.), 52 S. AV., 1112; Young v. Gaus, 134 Mo. App., 166; Nat. Bank of Commerce v. Pick, 13 N. D., 74; Halsey v. Henry Jewett Co., 190 N. Y., 231.
FROM HAMILTON.
Appeal from the Chancery Court of Hamilton County. — T. M. McConnell, Chancellor.
Strang & Fletcher, for appellants.
Thompson, Williams & Thompson, for appellee.

Opinion:
Mr. Justice Williams
delivered the opinion of the Court.
One who shows himself to he the innocent holder of a note negotiable in form may recover thereon, not-ivithstanding the fact that the note was executed in this State to a payee that was a foreign corporation, which had not, though required to do so, complied with the laws of this State in respect of the filing here of a copy of its charter of incorporation.
Whatever may be the rule as to the maintenance of suit by such corporate payee itself (Orr's Administrator v. Orr, 157 Ky., 570, 163 S. W., 757), or whatever. may have been the rule as to the right of an innocent holder in that regard before the passage of our Negotiable Instruments Law (Acts 1899, ch. 94), as to which see First National Bank of Massillon v. Coughron (Ch. App.), 52 S. W., 1112, we think it manifest that, since the passage of that law, a recovery will be awarded to one into whose hands, as an innocent holder, such a note comes. Section 60 of that act governs, in its stipulation as follows:
"The maker of a negotiable instrument, by making it engages that he will pay it according to its tenor, and admits the existence of the payee and his then capacity to indorse."
This statutory provision has been so construed by the courts of several jurisdictions. Young v. Gaus, 134 Mo. App., 166, 113 S. W., 735; National Bank of Commerce v. Pick, 13 N. D., 74, 99 N. E., 63; Brannan, Neg. Inst. Law, sec. 60. And see Halsey v. Henry Jewett Co., 190 N. Y., 231, 83 N. E., 25, 123 Am. St. Rep., 546.
This, if we were to treat the execution of the note to the corporate payee to have been a part of a doing of business in this State on its part, so as to fall within the purview of our foreign corporation acts.
Decree of the court of civil appeals, in not holding the indorsee an innocent holder, is reversed, and the bill of complainant of Edwards, the maker of the note, seeking to cancel the note, is dismissed.