Bledsoe v. City Nat. Bank of Selma

• Decision Date: 17 December 1912
• Parties: BLEDSOE v. CITY NAT. BANK OF SELMA.
• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals

60 So. 942

7 Ala.App. 195

BLEDSOE v. CITY NAT. BANK OF SELMA.

Court of Appeals of Alabama

December 17, 1912

Rehearing Denied Jan. 13, 1913.

Appeal from Law and Equity Court, Hale County; Charles E. Waller Judge.

Assumpsit by the City National Bank of Selma against H. T. Bledsoe. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

The note sued on is as follows: "$250, Selma, Ala., June 8 1910. For value received I promise to pay on or before the 15th day of December 1910, to the Siegel Automobile Company Selma, Ala., or order, the sum of $250, with interest until paid, at 8% from date. Payable at the Selma National Bank Selma, Ala." The note also contained waiver of exemption agreement to pay attorney's fees, and retaining title in the Ford Model T. touring car, No. 26,018, and other provisions not necessary to be here set out. There were two other notes for the same amount, due and payable on November 15, 1910.

R. B. Evins, of Greensboro, for appellant.

Thomas E. Knight, of Greensboro, for appellee.

PELHAM, J.

This action was brought in the court below by the appellee, the City National Bank of Selma, a banking institution conducting a regular banking business under the national banking laws, against the appellant to recover the amount evidenced by two notes executed by the appellant and payable to the order of the Siegel Automobile Company, of Selma, Ala. The notes, or instruments in question, were, before maturity and in the usual course of business for a valuable consideration, indorsed by the payee to the plaintiff bank. The plaintiff discounted the notes for the payee in due course of its business, without notice or knowledge of any defenses thereto. The plaintiff alleged the above facts in each count of the complaint seeking recovery on the notes. The defendant, besides a plea of the general issue, filed numerous special pleas setting up a material alteration in the notes, or instruments declared upon, and a plea of failure of consideration.

The complaint averred the facts and set out the instruments sued on in hæc verba, showing the same to be negotiable instruments, and the plea setting up partial and total failure of consideration presented no defense to the plaintiff's action under the counts of the complaint averring ownership in the plaintiff bank through indorsement before maturity in due course of business, without notice of the existence of any defense. The instruments sued on are plainly negotiable instruments under the rulings of the Supreme Court and statutory provisions now in force prescribing and defining such instruments. First Nat. Bank v. Slaughter, 98 Ala. 602, 14 So. 545, 39 Am. St. Rep. 88; Williams v. Flowers, 90 Ala. 136, 7 So. 439, 24 Am. St. Rep. 772; Montgomery v. Crossthwait, 90 Ala. 553, 8 So. 498, 12 L. R. A. 140, 24 Am. St. Rep. 832; Acts Ala. (Special Session) 1909, p. 126 et seq., §§ 2, 5, 6, 10, 16, 26, 45, 56, 57, 59, 124.

The provisions whereby the maker agreed to pay the expenses of collection, including an attorney's fee, did not destroy...