Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta v. Haynie

• Decision Date: 01 March 1933
• Docket Number: 22161.
• Citation: 168 S.E. 112,46 Ga.App. 522
• Parties: FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF ATLANTA v. HAYNIE et al.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

168 S.E. 112

46 Ga.App. 522

FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF ATLANTA v. HAYNIE et al.

No. 22161.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Second Division

March 1, 1933

Syllabus by Editorial Staff.

Fact cannot be established by circumstantial evidence which is perfectly consistent with direct, uncontradicted, reasonable and unimpeached testimony that fact does not exist.

In transferee's suit on note, uncontradicted testimony that transferee acquired note for valuable consideration before maturity and appointed payee collecting agent required verdict for transferee, as against plea that defendant executed note as surety for husband's debt notwithstanding evidence that payee had note after maturity and requested payment thereof.

Any inference arising from evidence that payee had possession of the note after maturity and that payee wrote a letter to the obligor in which it referred to the debt as owing to itself which might rebut the presumption that transferee was a holder in due course was completely dispelled by the otherwise uncontradicted and unimpeached direct testimony of agent for payee who had written the letter referred to, that on a specific date prior to the maturity of the note the payee had indorsed it and transferred it to transferee for valuable consideration, and that transferee thereby acquired title to the note, and that the possession of the note by the payee after its maturity was by the payee as agent for the transferee, the owner, for the purpose of collection.

In transferee's suit on note, letter of payee demanding payment of maker, written after transfer, while payee was in possession of note, held admissible against transferee as tending to explain payee's possession on question of transferee's due course holding.

Error from City Court of Danielsville; J. T. Murray, Judge.

Suit by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta against M. L. Haynie and others. Judgment for defendants, plaintiff's motion for a new trial was overruled, and plaintiff brings error.

Reversed.

R Howard Gordon, of Danielsville, for plaintiff in error.

Worley Adams, of Royston, and Clarence E. Adams, of Danielsville, for defendants in error.

Syllabus OPINION.

STEPHENS Judge.

1. "A fact cannot be established by circumstantial evidence which is perfectly consistent with direct, uncontradicted, reasonable and unimpeached testimony that the fact does not exist." Neill v. Hill, 32 Ga.App. 381 (2b), 123 S.E. 30, 31; Frazier v. Ga. Ry., etc., Co., 108 Ga. 807 (1), 33 S.E. 996. As stated by Mr. Justice Van Devanter in United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. Des Moines National Bank (C.C.A.) 145 F. 273, "If the facts are consistent with either of two opposing theories, they prove neither." As was also stated in Smith v. First National Bank, 99 Mass. 605, 97 Am.Dec. 59, "When the evidence tends equally to sustain either of two inconsistent propositions, neither of them can be said to have been established by legitimate proof." See authorities collected in Taylor v. State, 44 Ga.App. 387, at pages 417 and 418, 161 S.E. 793.

2. Assuming that the presumption that the holder of a note who is the transferee is a holder in due course may be rebutted by evidence of the payee's possession of the note after its maturity, together with evidence of a statement made by the payee while in possession of the note which is consistent with and indicative of the payee's ownership of the note yet, where the statement which the payee had made was equally as consistent with the fact of his agency for the transferee to collect the note as with his ownership of the note, the statement made by the payee, even though it may be considered as relevant as a circumstance which, when taken in connection with the payee's possession of the note after maturity,...