Court Opinion

ID: 9586687
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:14:05.493676+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:47.846308
License: Public Domain

Nichols, Judge,
dissenting. The note in this case was payable to the order of James K. Puckett and Annie Puckett and E. H. Siler, and stated in part: “The first $1,000 payable herein, shall be payable to E. H. Siler and when paid, shall constitute the full interest of this instrument and the property secured thereby vested in the said E. H. Siler; payment in the said Siler shall be payment upon this note for the first $1,000.” The indorsement or assignment reads in part as follows: “For value received the undersigned, hereby, sell, assign, and transfer to (Miler B. Sams, Cecil Hodson) to its successors and assigns without recourse, the within note signed by J. B. Scoggins dated April 28th, 1959, together with all the rights, powers and privileges contained therein, and all right, title and interest in and to the property therein described.”
Code § 14-412 provides: “Where an instrument is payable to the order of two or more payees or indorsees who are not partners, all must indorse, unless the one indorsing has authority to indorse for the others.” It is not alleged that E. H. Siler had authority to indorse the note for James K. Puckett or Annie Puckett, nor is it alleged that they were partners. In the case of Fulton Nat. Bank v. Didschuneit, 92 Ga. App. 527, 532 (88 S. E. 2d 853), while Judge Felton dissented as to another question presented by the record, this court unanimously (six judges) held that a check made payable to 2 or more persons must, in order for an indorsement to be valid, be indorsed by all such payees.
In the present case where the alleged right of the plaintiffs, or later the sole plaintiff, to recover is based on an assignment by one of three joint payees, and the petition does not disclose that such payees were partners or that the indorsing payee had authority from, the joint payees to so indorse the note, the judgment of the trial court sustaining the defendant’s general de*51murrer to the petition, in the writer’s opinion, was a correct judgment and should be by this court affirmed, since no right vested in the plaintiff, or in the plaintiffs, as the action was originally filed, to bring an action on the note, and the fact that the note provided for the first $1,000 to be paid to the indorsing payee would in no wise change the above result.
I am authorized to say that Judge Bell agrees with what is said here in this dissent.