Court Opinion

ID: 8634768
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-24 19:43:24.848909+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:55:53.592203
License: Public Domain

By THEODORE B. GATES, Register:
The facts in the case are as follows: Proof was made by James B. Olney, as attorney for Thomas Montgomery, on the 24th of March, 1869, upon three several notes, amounting in the aggregate to one thousand eight hundred and forty-five dollars and twenty-nine cents, which, with five hundred and fifty-four dollars and seventy-one cents interest, the creditor claims to be entitled to receive dividends upon. Two of these notes are for the sum of seven hundred and eight dollars each, and bear date October 19, 1853, and are made by Montgomery and Griffin. They are both payable to B. P. Cowles, or order, one nine months, and the other one year after date. The notes were not indorsed by the payee. The first note is dated April 1st, 1859, for four hundred and twenty-nine dollars and twenty-nine cents, payable one year after date, to Thomas Montgomery, or bear®:, and is signed by Henry B. Montgomery. About this note there is no question. Indorsements for interest are made from time to time, on these several notes, down to the 1st of July, 1864, but no part of the principal of either appears to have been paid. The two notes, dated October 19, 1853, were given on account of the sale of certain merchandise (not for money lent, as stated by the proof), by said Cowles to Montgomery and Griffin, who were then copartners, but who dissolved in the fall of 1854. Montgomery purchased the stock, and assumed the debts. Thomas Montgomery is the father of the bankrupt, and Griffin and Cowles were sons-in-law of Thomas. Cowles died, leaving his property, including these notes, to his widow, as part of his personal estate. Soon after the widow died, and these notes went to Thomas Montgomery, the present owner. Henry B. Montgomery swears that he had a settlement with his father in the fall of 1864, of all matters between them except the note of four hundred and twenty-nine dollars and twenty-one cents, and found a balance of nine hundred and sixteen dollars due to his father, and gave him a new note therefor, signed by himself alone, and this he thinks was in November, 1864.' That the old notes were not taken up, because his father desired to preserve them a short time, and hold them as memo-randa of the settlement, and that deponent has neglected to take them and cancel the same. Henry B. Montgomery was his father’s messenger to bring these notes with a power of attorney, to Catskill, and placed them in the hands of his father’s lawyer, to be proved in this matter. Indeed, he selected these notes from among the papers of his father, and delivered them to the attorney. Montgomery says he supposed the nine hundred and sixteen dollars was among them. It is a little curious that he did not examine these papers sufficiently to know whether they were the seven hundred and eight dollar or nine hundred and sixteen dollar notes, and it can hardly be credited that he should have picked out not only notes wrong in amount, but also in number, and carried them thirty-seven miles, and placed them in the hands of his father’s attorney for proof, and never have discovered his error. But further on in Montgomery’s affidavit, he says: That deponent, in the haste and confusion at*624tendant apon the hearing (the first meeting of creditors), did not think of the note of nine hundred and sixteen dollars above referred to, and not until he had seen his father on his return home, did he remember the circumstances of the transaction. He then looked for the nine hundred and sixteen dollar note, but was not able to find it, nor has it been found. The affidavits of Griffin and Olney are not material to the real question involved, except to show that neither Thomas nor Henry B. Montgomery gave any intimation to either of them from March 24th, when the notes were proved, to October 18th, that there was any error in the proof. The claim proven by Amelia M. Griffin is properly in evidence in this matter, and should be considered in connection with this question. It may throw some light upon the subject, and, if so, the court should avail itself of it. That proof is upon a promissory note in the words and figures following: “$162.71. Prattsville, November 3, 1864. Due Thomas Montgomery, on settlement, one hundred and sixty-two dollars and seventy-one cents, with interest. H. B. Montgomery.” The proof states that this note was given on a settlement between the parties to it. By reference to the indorsement on the first seven hundred and eight dollar note, I find the following: “Received, November 4, 1864, on the within, interest up to July 1, 1864,” and on the other a like in-dorsement, but dated November 3d. 1864.
I cannot reconcile all these circumstances with the statement of Henry B. Montgomery, that he gave a new note for the balance due on the two old ones. If that had really taken place, why should his father have retained the old notes? The reason.given by Henry B. Montgomery is entirely unsatisfactory to my mind. The new note was all the “memorandum” his father required or could have wanted. If he had really given a new note in November, 1864, why should the payment of interest up to July have been indorsed on the old notes on November 1, 1864? If there was a settlement and a new note given in November, 1864, as Henry swears, for nine hundred and sixteen dollars, why should the above pote, dated on the 3d of that month, for one hundred and sixty-two dollars and seventy-one cents, “on settlement,” have been given? and why should the old notes of Montgomery & Griffin have been proved, if there was a note of Henry B. Montgomery’s substituted for them? I think Mr. Montgomery is confused in his recollection of these matters, and that_he is entirely mistaken as to the nine hundred and sixteen dollar note. If such a note was given, there seems to have been no consideration for it. The original notes were not surrendered, but were kept until this application was made to amend the proof. Considering the evidence which has been submitted upon this application, with a view to do exact justice between Thomas Montgomery and the other creditor of his son, Henry B. Montgomery, I am constrained to recommend that the application for leave to amend the proof of claim of Thomas Montgomery be denied..