Edgell v. Sigerson

• Decision Date: 31 March 1858
• Citation: 26 Mo. 583
• Parties: EDGELL, Respondent, v. SIGERSON, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

26 Mo. 583

EDGELL, Respondent,

v.SIGERSON, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

March Term, 1858.

1. A. in a certain suit for the recovery of instalments of interest alleged to be due on a promissory note, wherein B., the maker, set up that the said note had been fraudulently altered so as to make interest payable from date, recovered judgment. Held, that said judgment was conclusive, as against the maker, as to the question of fraudulent alteration, in a subsequent suit on the note itself.

Appeal from St. Louis Court of Common Pleas.

This case has heretofore been before this court. (See report of decision 20 Mo. 494.)

This was an action on the following promissory note: “$4,138.50. St. Louis, October 1, 1848. Five years after date, I promise to pay to the order of myself four thousand one hundred and thirty-eight five-hundredths dollars, for value received, without defalcation or discount, negotiable and payable at the Bank of the State of Missouri; with interest from date at six per cent. per annum, interest payable annually. [Signed] John Sigerson.”

The petition stated that in the year 1852 plaintiff had commenced a suit to recover the instalments of interest then due on the above note; that in said suit defendant pleaded that that portion of the note stating that interest is to be paid annually from date at the rate of six per cent. had been inserted without the knowledge, authority or consent of defendant Sigerson; that plaintiff in that suit recovered judgment.

In the present suit defendant admits the execution of the note, but sets up that the same was fraudulently altered, as alleged by defendant in the suit for instalments of interest. Defendant insists that said alteration made the note void. Defendant further alleges in his answer that the judgment rendered against him in the suit for instalments was obtained by fraud.

At the trial the plaintiff gave the note in evidence, also a transcript of the judgment in the suit for instalments of interest. Testimony was then adduced bearing upon the question whether the interest clause was in the note at the time of its execution and delivery.

The court, at the instance of the plaintiff, instructed the jury as follows: “1. If the jury believe from the evidence that the plaintiff and Francis W. Peasley were partners at the time the suit was commenced, the record of which has been given in evidence by plaintiff; that the note then belonged to said Edgell, Peasley & Co.; that the note sued on in this suit is the...