Jamison v. Auxier
| Decision Date | 09 February 1910 |
| Citation | 124 N.W. 606,145 Iowa 654 |
| Parties | JAMES H. JAMISON, Receiver of First National Bank of Chariton, Iowa, Appellant, v. S. L. AUXIER and NORA M. AUXIER, Appellees |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Lucas District Court.--HON. FRANK W. EICHELBERGER Judge.
ACTION at law upon a promissory note, and to foreclose a real and chattel mortgage given by defendants to the First National Bank of Chariton, Iowa. Defendants pleaded payment of the note to one Crocker, the cashier of said bank. Plaintiff denied the payment, and also pleaded an estoppel upon defendants from insisting thereon. The case was tried to the court, resulting in a decree dismissing plaintiff's petition. Plaintiff appeals.
Affirmed.
O. A. & L. B. Bartholomew, for appellant.
Stuart Stuart & Stuart, for appellees.
Aside from two questions relating to the competency of certain testimony offered by the defendants, the case presents nothing but an issue of fact, and that simple issue arises by reason of the defense of payment.
Defendant S. L. Auxier claims to have paid the note to one F. R Crocker, who at that time was cashier of the First National Bank of Chariton, to which bank the notes and mortgages in suit were executed. He was introduced as a witness, and permitted to testify, over plaintiff's objections, to the payment, and to all the facts and circumstances accompanying the same. At the time of trial Crocker was deceased, and plaintiff is the receiver of the bank of which Crocker was cashier. It is claimed that the testimony of defendant was incompetent under section 4604 of the Code. Defendants also produced a receipt, purporting to have been signed by Crocker, for $ 1,859.76 in satisfaction of the note in suit. It is said that this should not have been received in evidence, for the reason that it bore upon its face evidence of having been changed, altered, and tampered with, and was not in the handwriting of Crocker. These two rulings on the admission of testimony are the only ones presented in argument. We are satisfied that both rulings were correct. Plaintiff is not the assignee or receiver of Crocker. True, he is, of the bank of which Crocker was a stockholder, director, and cashier; but the statute does not apply to such a situation. In what he did with defendant Auxier he was acting merely as the agent of the bank, and the statute does not apply to transactions with a deceased agent. Johnson v. Johnson, 52 Iowa 586 at 590, 3 N.W. 661; Reynolds v. Ins. Co., 80 Iowa 563, 46 N.W. 659; Bellows v. Litchfield, 83 Iowa 36 at 44, 48 N.W. 1062. These cases so clearly rule the matter now under consideration that we need not say more upon the first proposition.
The receipt, which reads...
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