Hefner v. Dawson

• Decision Date: 31 January 1872
• Citation: 1872 WL 8201,14 Am.Rep. 123,63 Ill. 403
• Parties: MARSTON HEFNERv.SAMUEL DAWSON.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

63 Ill. 403

1872 WL 8201 (Ill.)

14 Am.Rep. 123

MARSTON HEFNER

v.SAMUEL DAWSON.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

January Term, 1872.

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of McLean county; the Hon. THOMAS F. TIPTON, Judge, presiding.

Messrs. WILLIAMS & BURR, for the appellant.

Messrs. WELDON & BENJAMIN, for the appellee.

Mr. JUSTICE SHELDON delivered the opinion of the Court:

This was an action of assumpsit, brought by appellee against appellant, upon a promissory note purporting to have been made by appellant and one Coman.

Appellant, by plea verified by affidavit, denied the execution of the note; the cause was tried by the court without the intervention of a jury, and judgment rendered against the defendant, from which he prosecutes this appeal. It is not claimed that appellant did make the note, but it is contended that, by his acts and admissions, he is concluded from denying that fact.

This case, in its main features, is much like the one of Hefner v. Vandolah, 62 Ill. 483, except that there is more in the conduct of the defendant, and the circumstances in the present case as testified to, which partakes of the character of an estoppel in pais, than there was in the former one, and there is a conflict of testimony here which did not there exist. There was evidence in the present case which went to show, and would sustain the finding of the court to that effect, that the defendant not only adopted and ratified the signature of his name upon the note, but that, by his admissions and declarations that the note was “all right,” and that if plaintiff would “hold still” he would pay him, he knowingly and designedly induced the plaintiff to omit taking any measures to collect the note of Coman, at the time when the latter had ample property in his hands, and a resort to whom for the collection of the note would, in all probability, have been successful; and that afterwards, while the plaintiff continued to be misled by the assurances of the defendant, Coman failed in business and absconded, rendering the collection of the note from him impossible.

Without repeating what was said in the former case referred to, as to such adoption and ratification by Hefner of the use of his name upon the note being sufficient to charge him with liability, although his signature was forged, we refer to the authorities therein cited in support of that position, and, in addition, to the following authorities, that, under the foregoing state of facts, the defendant...