Maddox v. Robbert

• Decision Date: 30 March 1925
• Docket Number: 25302
• Citation: 158 La. 394,104 So. 183
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: MADDOX v. ROBBERT

104 So. 183

158 La. 394

MADDOX v. ROBBERT

No. 25302

Supreme Court of Louisiana

March 30, 1925

Rehearing Denied April 27, 1925

Appeal from Civil District Court, Parish of Orleans; Wynne G Rogers, Judge.

Action by F. Alexander Maddox against Henry J. Robbert. From the judgment of dismissal, plaintiff appeals.

Annulled, reversed, and remanded.

Janvier & Heller and Theodore H. McGiehan, all of New Orleans, for appellant.

E. M Robbert and McCloskey & Benedict, all of New Orleans, for appellee.

THOMPSON, J. ROGERS, J., recused.

OPINION

THOMPSON, J.

This suit is against the indorser on three promissory notes aggregating $ 13,000. The notes were executed by Fernand Cavalier and made payable to the order of the City Savings & Investment Company.

On December 15, 1919, the City Savings & Investment Company brought suit on the notes in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. In the petition in that suit it was alleged that the petitioner was the holder of the notes. The present plaintiff, Maddox, was the president of the City Savings & Investment Company at the time said suit was filed, and he verified the allegations of the petition by his affidavit.

In answer to the suit the defendant Robbert denied that the City Savings & Investment Company was the holder for value of the notes sued on and denied that he had indorsed the said notes. The suit was never tried but was discontinued on motion of plaintiff's attorney on December 20, 1921.

Thereafter, on January 24, 1922, the City Savings & Investment Company, whose name had been changed to the Citizens' Loan & Investment Company in compliance with the requirements of the banking laws of Louisiana, made an assignment of the notes to the plaintiff herein. In this assignment it was declared that Maddox had individually and personally loaned the money for which the notes were executed and that the said notes were made payable to the City Savings & Investment Company for "convenience or otherwise" to the company and to the borrowers. The assignment further recited:

"Now therefore, the purpose of this instrument is to be declaration of the ownership of F. A. Maddox by the Citizens' Loan & Investment Company, formerly the Citizens' Savings & Investment Company, that the above-described notes are the individual property of F. A. Maddox, and any right, title or interest there may have been vested in the Citizens' Savings & Investment Company or the Citizens' Loan & Investment Company, is hereby transferred and assigned to F. A. Maddox."

In the plaintiff's petition in the present suit it is alleged that in making the loans for which the notes were given, the plaintiff used his own personal funds, intending to turn said notes and said loans over to said Citizens' Savings & Investment Company and obtain reimbursement therefor, but that said corporation has not refused to take the said loans and has assigned to petitioner any right, title, or interest which it has in and to the said notes.

To this petition the defendant filed an exception of no right and no cause of action and a plea of estoppel. The last-named plea was sustained and the plaintiff's suit dismissed.

The exception and the plea are founded on the same facts and are treated as one in the brief of counsel for defendant and we shall follow the same course. The contention is, that the plaintiff, having joined in the suit in the federal court on these same notes, as president of the payee company, and having made the affidavit to the petition in which the said company claimed to be owner or holder of the notes, cannot now be heard to claim said notes as his own individual property.

The facts in our opinion do not justify the application of the legal principle contended for. To apply that doctrine in this case would place the notes in a position where no one would be permitted to claim the ownership and no one could sue thereon.

The original payee and one time apparent owner could not sue on the notes, for it has assigned any interest it may have had to the plaintiff, Maddox, and the latter could not sue because he had judicially admitted ownership of the notes in the Savings & Investment Company. It may be possible under certain circumstances for the real owner of a note by his actions and conduct to create a situation where he could neither sue on the note nor transfer the same to another, but that condition does not exist here. At the time suit was instituted in the federal court the Savings & Investment Company was the payee named in the notes and was the legal and apparent owner of the notes. In that situation no one else could have brought the suit. The present plaintiff being the official head of the company, it was incumbent on him to verify the petition, and to direct the suit. He had loaned the money which formed the consideration of the notes and had taken the notes in the name of his company in presumed good faith, and had every reason to assume that his actions would be ratified and approved and the notes accepted by the company.

It was manifestly on this hypothesis that he joined in the suit. He did not know at that time, so far as appears from the record that his action in taking the notes in the name of his company would be repudiated by the company and the transaction regarded as having been made for and on his...