Hartsook v. Owens, 5-3033

• Decision Date: 03 June 1963
• Docket Number: No. 5-3033,5-3033
• Citation: 236 Ark. 790,370 S.W.2d 69
• Parties: , 1 UCC Rep.Serv. 314 Esther Myrtle HARTSOOK, Administratrix, Appellant, v. S. C. OWENS, Appellee.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 69

370 S.W.2d 69

236 Ark. 790, 1 UCC Rep.Serv. 314

Esther Myrtle HARTSOOK, Administratrix, Appellant, v. S. C. OWENS, Appellee.

No. 5-3033.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

June 3, 1963.

George E. Pike, DeWitt, for appellant.

Wilbur Botts, DeWitt, for appellee.

GEORGE ROSE SMITH, Justice.

Guy Hartsook died intestate on July 13, 1961. In November his half-brother, the appellee, filed a claim against the estate in the amount of $1,050.00, based upon a check that had purportedly been given by the decedent to the appellee on December 20, 1960. The administratrix disallowed the claim, but upon trial of the matter in the probate court the claim was allowed. This appeal is from the order of allowance.

It is first contended that the check became a nullity as a result of the appellee's failure to cash it within six months after its date. This contention is based upon the statutes that relieve a bank of the duty of cashing checks more than six months old. Ark.Stat.Ann. § 67-534 (Repl.1957); Ibid. § 85-4-404 (Add.1961). These statutes were adopted for the protection of the bank and plainly do not have the effect of extinguishing a valid obligation merely because it is more than six months past due. Such a holding would create an extremely short statute of limitations where none was intended by the legislature.

The close question in the case is whether the weight of the evidence is contrary to the court's finding that the check in question bears the genuine signature of Guy Hartsook.

Owens identified the check and testified at some length, but much of his testimony was objected to as being in violation of the dead man's statute and cannot be considered. Ark.Const., Schedule § 2. The claimant's principal witness was his grown daughter, who testified positively that she was present when the check was prepared, signed, and delivered in her parents' home. The check itself bears a notation that it was given for the payee's part in certain farm machinery.

The appellant called the president of the decedent's bank as a handwriting expert, but his testimony is hardly favorable to either side. At first, after having compared the 1960 check with an earlier one written in 1949 and with a still older signature card, the witness stated that he doubted if the signature upon the check in issue was genuine. On cross-examination, however, the witness readily admitted that a person's signature changes with age. After having been shown a postcard assertedly signed by the...