Court Opinion

ID: 9866193
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 00:39:10.258949+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:13:27.378119
License: Public Domain

*265Bond, C. L,
filed the following ¡separate opinion, in which P'abke, J., concurred:
■ I agree in the 'affirmance of the judgment on the ground that the undisputed evidence in this particular case shows that the parties all understood that payment of the not© was to he made only out of funds of the corporation which were in the receiver’s hands, ¡or might com© into them, -and that the note was to add nothing to the possibility of payment from tha!t source, but was merely to • put the situation in written form. That being the ease, I think the receiver did not incur personal responsibility on his nbte, even though it was unauthorized. But I have been unable to agree with some of the statements of principle on which the decision' is founded. In the first place, the opinion rejects.the contention that one who signs1 a negotiable instrument in a representative capacity without authority to do so is rendered personally liable by section, 39 of ’article 13 of the Maryland Code, originally section 20 of tbe Uniform Negotiable Instruments Law. The discussion of the several authorities on this law at the time of its first publication makes it clear that the section was framed with the deliberate intention of imposing that personal liability. The discussion, generally known as the Ames-Brewster controversy, will be found reproduced in full in Brannan’s Negotiable Instruments Law (3rd Ed.), pages 418 to 549. It appears that Crawford, who made the first tentative draft, adopted his form of the section from the English law, which made no reference to personal liability, but that the commissioners rejected this and adopted the present form from the German Exchange Law, and that they preferred the latter because of the imposition of personal liability. The Whole discussion assumed this liability to be imposed and proceeded from that point to argue the wisdom of it. All ecscept Ames approved it. So far as I have discovered, the clause has been considered in only three cases. In Tuttle v. First Nat. Bank, 187 Mass. 533, the court construed it as just stated, saying, page 535: “Because of the absence of 'authority, ¡and notwithstanding the *266recital in the body of 'the note, and form of its execution, the promise was his personal 'obligation' enforceable against-him while living, and after his death against his estate.” And this was the construction adopted in Eisinger v. Murphy Co., 48 App. D. C. 476, and 52 App. D. C. 197. In Haupt v. Vint, 68 W. Va. 657, 661, although dealing with a note executed before the adoption of the statute, so that the question did not -arise, the court, replying to- an argument on it, suggested a contrary eonstnxction. The obligation thus imposed on representatives of one kind and another is an imporbaaxt safeguard for persons with whom they may trade, and I have not seen -any reason for adopting a construction which would do away with it.
The opinion further states that there is no reason to hold the receiver here personally liable if he lacked authority to sign as such, because the parties, with full knowledge of all the material facts, agreed .that he should not be so- liable. The material fact in this situation wo-uld be the fact that the receiver was not authorized to sign. I do- not see any evidence of actual knowledge on the paid of the appellant of that lack of authority, -and I am not ready to- accept as a correct principle that the notice which one dealing with a receiver is in other connections construed to have of the limits of the powers of that receiver can have 'the effect of relieving him of the personal responsibility imposed by 'the statute for executing a note as receiver without authority. See Tuttle v. First Nat. Bank, supra. The only •agreement that the receiver should not be personally liable is, it seems, such as may be deduced from his refusal to add his personal indorsement and the acceptance of the note without it. But if this were sufficient to relieve of the statutory liability, there would be very little effectiveness -allowed to- the provision, for a signing in the representative capacity need's little more in any ease to make it amount to a refusal to sign in a, personal capacity, and that little more must -be present in a large number of oases. As I see it, so long as the- dispensing' with a, personal ■indorsement is accompanied by an assumption of authority *267'to execute as representative, the dispensing with the personal indorsement has no effect upon the statutory responsibility. A waiver of the latter liability could be founded only on .an agreement taking account in some way of the possibility of lack of authority, and there was no such agreement here.