Cayuga County Nat. Bank v. Purdy

• Decision Date: 21 January 1885
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: CAYUGA CO. NAT. BANK OF AUBURN v. PURDY.

22 N.W. 93

56 Mich. 6

CAYUGA CO. NAT. BANK OF AUBURN v. PURDY.

Supreme Court of Michigan

January 21, 1885

Error to Branch.

Barlow & Loveridge, for plaintiff.

John B Shipman and John R. Champion, for defendants and appellants.

CHAMPLIN J.

The only question to be determined in this case is whether the instrument offered in evidence is a negotiable promissory note. It reads as follows:

"$366.66 COLDWATER, MICH., February 27, 1883.

"On the first day of November, 1883, we, the undersigned, whose post-office address is Algansee, county of Branch, and state of Mich., jointly and severally, for value received promise to pay E.M. Birdsall & Company, or order, three hundred sixty-six 66-100 dollars, with interest at 7 per cent. per annum, if paid when due; if not so paid, then the interest shall be 10 per cent. per annum from date. We also agree to pay exchange and all expenses, including attorney's fee, incurred in collecting. Payable at the First National Bank, in Coldwater, Mich.

"We do hereby relinquish and waive the benefits of all laws exempting real and personal property from levy and sale, and all benefit or relief from valuation and appraisement laws. GEORGE R. PURDY.

"ELNATHAN GEORGE."

There is some conflict of authority upon the subject, and it has been so fully discussed in the opinions advanced upon both sides of the question that we deem it unnecessary either to review the authorities, or to amplify upon the reasons given. The weight of authority is clearly that such instruments do not possess the essential requisites of negotiable paper.

A promissory note is defined by Judge STORY to be "a written engagement by one person to pay another person therein named, absolutely and unconditionally, a certain sum of money at a time specified therein." The definition by all text-writers is essentially the same. They are instruments which have long been recognized by commercial usage, and the rights and liabilities of the parties to them have become fixed by settled rules of law. They perform important functions in the transaction of business, second only to money. Any innovation, therefore, on what has long been considered as settled law, in the form and substance of such contracts, must evidently tend to uncertainty as to the rights of makers and indorsers, and introduce confusion where stability is of the utmost consequence to the community. The modern tendency to interpolate into...