Commercial Credit Co. v. M. McDonough Co.

• Decision Date: 07 March 1921
• Parties: COMMERCIAL CREDIT CO. v. M. McDONOUGH CO.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

238 Mass. 73

130 N.E. 179

COMMERCIAL CREDIT CO.

v.M. McDONOUGH CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

March 7, 1921.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Jabez Fox, Judge.

Action by the Commercial Credit Company against the M. McDonough Company. The court found for plaintiff, and defendant brings exceptions. Exceptions overruled.Lee M. Friedman, Louis B. King, and Friedman & Atherton, all of Boston, for plaintiff.

Manson M. Dillaway, fo Wakefield, for defendant.

De COURCY, J.

The defendant bought a Gramm-Bernstein motor truck from Wayland L. Sturtevant, a Boston dealer, on a conditional sales agreement. The purchase price was $5,936, of which $2,500 was paid in cash, and the balance was payable in monthly installments of $200 each represented by promissory notes. Sturtevant indorsed the notes and assigned the sales agreement to the plaintiff, a banking concern which did an extensive business in automobile financing with dealers. The plaintiff, by letter dated September 25, 1917, notified the defendant that it had purchased the notes. The defendant paid those maturingeach month until April, 1918, when it refused to make further payments. This action was brought to recover on the unpaid 12 notes, which had become due and payable by the terms of the agreement. The judge of the superior court, sitting without a jury, found for the plaintiff for the full amount of its claim.

The judge's general finding is conclusive if there was any evidence to support it. Bill v. Stewart, 156 Mass. 508, 31 N. E. 386;Bailey v. Marden, 193 Mass. 277, 79 N. E. 257. He was not bound to make specific findings of fact, as requested in the defendant's so-called ‘request for urlings,’ numbered 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10. Puffer Manufacturing Co. v. Yeager, 230 Mass. 557, 563, 120 N. E. 97. We cannot say that the judge erred in refusing to rule (request 12) that ‘on all the evidence the plaintiff was not a holder in due course.’ The first two requisites, namely, that the notes were complete and regular upon their face, and that the plaintiff became the holder thereof before they were overdue, were not in controversy. The third element is, that the plaintiff took the notes ‘in good faith and for value.’ R. L. c. 73, § 69. The good faith was not questioned. And there was ample evidence of consideration in the payment of the proceeds of the notes, by the express authority of Sturtevant, to C. W. Moody, who was distributor for the Gramm-Bernstein Company in New England. Moody applied this on his indebtedness to the plaintiff arising out of a certain other transaction, and thereby secured a renewal of his notes, amounting to some $60,000, due to the plaintiff. That is sufficient consideration to make the plaintiff a holder for value. Fulton National Bank v. Gosline, 168 Mass. 86, 46 N. E. 406;Montrose Savings Bank v. Claussen, 137 Iowa, 73, 114 N. W. 547;Mechanics' Bank v. Chardavoyne, 69 N. J. Law, 256, 261, 55 Atl. 1080,101 Am. St. Rep. 701;Wallabout Bank v. Peyton, 123 App. Div. 727,108 N. Y. Supp. 42;National Bank of Commerce v. Armbruster et al., 42 Okl. 656, 142 Pac. 393. The assumption in the ‘additional ruling requested,’ that this application of the proceeds of the defendant's notes was ‘without agreement with Moody’ (assuming that the defendant can raise this point), is negatived by the fact that Moody paid in cash the difference between these proceeds ($2,647.20) and the $5,000 then payable by him to the plaintiff.

The fourth requirement to make the plaintiff a holder in due course is that at the time the notes were negotiated, it ‘had no notice of any infirmity in the instrument, or defect in the title of the person negotiating it.’ The only ‘infirmity’ or ‘defect’ suggested by the defendant is that, as the notes were accompanied with the sales agreement, the...