Court Opinion

ID: 6990151
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-24 03:23:31.583056+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:09:35.255519
License: Public Domain

On petition for a rehearing. [Opinion filed December 16, 1887.] Per Curiam. Two questions were presented to the jury under the plea. 1st. Was there an agreement between the principal in the note and the cashier of the appellant to extend the time of payment of the note from the time it became due, May 15, 1876, to June 15, 1876, without the consent of the security, the appellee? 2d. Was the interest paid by the principal in advance as a consideration for so doing ? It is not claimed.that there is any instruction given by the court for the appellee injurious to appellant on the first proposition, and the jury having found from the evidence that there was such an agreement, we must regard it as rightfully sustained by the evidence. As to the second question presented to the jury the appellant claims that there was no payment to it in a legal point of view; that the cashier received of the principal in the note the amount of the advanced interest in a board bill due from such cashier on his own account to the principal in the note, and that it did not receive the money. Instruction Nos. 3 and 4, given by the court at the request of appellee, are complained of as misleading to the jury on this issue. The third instruction told the jury in substance, if the cashier owed the principal in the note for board, due or to become due, and by agreement between them the cashier undertook to pay the bank the interest agreed on in consideration of so much board and at or about the same time charged the principal with the amount of interest against so much board and entered the payment on the back of the note for the amount of the interest agreed, then this in law was a good payment of the interest. The fourth was about the same in substance. Upon the question whether the cash was paid by the principal maker of the note on the particular interest for extension the evidence is somewhat conflicting, and if this were the turning point in the case the error in the instructions might be sufficient to cause reversal. The main point upon which the case hinges is, did the cashier pay the appellant the money as he had agreed, or did he make the indorsement on the note of the interest received without accounting to the bank for it ? If the cashier actually paid such interest into the treasury of the bank, then the bank would be bound by the contract of extension the same as though the principal on the note had paid it in cash over the counter. Can there be any doubt that such was the case? The first indorsement made on the note was as follows: “ Interest paid on the within for thirty days from May 15, 1876.” This was the indorsement upon which the extension was based, and if made before the 15tli of June it showed for itself that there was interest paid in advance for the extension. The second indorsement is as follows: “7-15. Beceived Int. to July 15. §4.40.” The date of this by the figure would indicate 7th month, 15th day, or July 15th. The note had two other indorsements made in August, 1876, not necessary to refer to. Now the cashier, a witness for appellant, swears that the first indorsement was afterward erased and the amount of interest carried into the second indorsement, being 82.20. He also swears that the amount of the first payment “ was in settlement for board.” The amount of money put into the first indorsement is still on the note and offered in evidence by the appellant, which is evidence produced by the appellant itself that the money was duly received and properly credited and is not in any way questioned as a good payment. If it was a good payment when credited in the second credit, it must have been when credited in the first. Nothing has happened to change the matter. The erasement of the first credit was a suspicious circumstance, from which the jury might rightfully infer that the appellant was trying to obliterate damaging evidence. The cashier nowhere swears that he did not pay the money, shown by the credit first made, into the bank. The appellant also withheld its bank books from going in evidence, which would have shown how the record stood. Then on the point that the appellant received the money for the first interest from the cashier being clearly shown, it would be wholly immaterial whether the cashier got the cash from the principal maker of the note, or got its worth in his own board, by which he was procured to pay the money to the bank. In this state of the evidence the instructions could make no difference. Petition for rehem'im.g denied.