Court Opinion

ID: 6234574
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-02-17 20:29:31.653137+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:58:00.132613
License: Public Domain

The opinion of the court was delivered, March 10th 1873, by
Sharswood, J.
The question raised by the first assignment of error, is whether there was sufficient evidence to submit to the jury, that the plaintiff below, the endorsee of the note in suit, before he took it, had notice of the fraud in the sale of the patent right which formed its consideration. It is not pretended that distinct notice of the fraud was given to him, or even that the Heists gave him notice generally, that they had been defrauded. Unaccompanied with any allegation, that there was a representation or warranty at the time of the contract, that the machine was to produce certain results, the mere statement that it did not work right, was no defence to the note. Nor was the fact that Hevner had agreed not to negotiate the note, and to renew it until it could be paid out of the profits, any more available, even as between the parties. Such a parol agreement, though made at the time, is inadmissible in evidence to vary the effect of the written contract in the case of negotiable paper: Hill v. Gaw, 4 Barr 493 ; Mason v. Graff, 11 Casey 448. Hart understood this, for he told Heist that if such was the agreement, the note should have been made non-negotiable on its face, and Heist assented to it. The information communicated by the Heists to Hart, so far from notifying him of any defence, was calculated to mislead him to believe there really was none. A mere, general notice that there was some defence, and that the note would not be paid, might be enough to put a party on inquiry. Hart may have been bound to ask the maker what was his defence. When he does so, however, and is only told what is clearly no defence, there is nothing which ought to impeach his bona fides. The first assignment of error is not sustained.
Nor is there any ground for the second error assigned. Conceding that the production of the assignment of the patent right for Pennsylvania by Harris & Oliver to Hevner, for the consideration of $40,000, and the representation by Hevner, that he had paid that sum, when in fact, the true consideration was only four or five thousand dollars, and that the larger amount had been inserted by Hevner’s request to enable him to impose upon the purchasers of county rights, was a fraud, which, between the parties, *290avoided the note, and conceding that the proof of this was sufficient to entitle the makers after notice, to require the holder to prove that he had given value, yet the evidence of Hart, which was entirely uncontradicted, was, that he had paid $1800 for it. The charge of the learned judge below, so far as regarded this point, that if the jury believed the evidence, they should find for the * plaintiff, was therefore entirely correct.
Judgment affirmed.