Moats v. Moats

• Decision Date: 18 June 1890
• Citation: 19 A. 965,72 Md. 325
• Parties: MOATS v. MOATS.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

19 A. 965

72 Md. 325

MOATS v. MOATS.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

June 18, 1890

Appeal from circuit court, Washington county.

Argued before ALVEY, C.J., and MILLER, IRVING, BRYAN, MCSHERRY, and FOWLER, JJ.

Henry H. Keedy and I. Clarence Lane, for appellant.

H Kyd Douglas and Buchanan Schley, for appellee.

ALVEY C.J.

This was an action brought by the appellee on a single bill or bill obligatory against John H. Moats, who died soon thereafter, and the appellant, becoming administrator with the will annexed, was made party defendant. The note or single bill bears date the 24th of February, 1885, and is for $950, payable one day after date. The case was tried upon issues joined upon pleas of non est factum, and that the note was procured by the fraud of the plaintiff. At the trial it was admitted that the whole of the instrument sued on, except the signature thereto, is in the handwriting of the plaintiff. There was no evidence given to show that any transactions had taken place between the parties that would likely have given rise to an occasion for passing the note from John H. Moats, the testator, to the plaintiff. In other words, the circumstances under which the note was executed by the testator and delivered to the plaintiff remain wholly undisclosed. There was evidence given on the part of the defendant tending to prove that John H. Moats, the testator was not, at the date of the note, in need of money, and had no occasion for borrowing money, but that he had money to loan; that he was old and in feeble health, being in his seventy-eighth year when he died, in August, 1889; that from the beginning of the year 1884 he was unable to attend to business, and that his son Joseph attended to all his business matters for him; that during the months of January February, and the early part of March, 1885, he was sick and confined to his bed, and that the plaintiff did not visit him during his sickness. The proof on the part of the defendant further tended to show that the plaintiff was poor and without money to loan; that he was carrying on a very small business; and that he had repeatedly declared, since the date of the note in question, that John H. Moats, the testator, was not indebted to him on any note, and, when requested to produce the note to the sons of the testator, he declined, saying that he did not hold any such note. There was other evidence of the same nature. At the conclusion of the evidence, the court, at the request of the plaintiff, instructed the jury as follows: "(1) That the possession of the single bill in suit by the plaintiff is prima facie evidence of the sealing and delivery of the same by the deceased to the plaintiff, provided the jury find that the single bill was subscribed with the signature of the defendant's testator in his own proper handwriting. (2) That if the jury should find the execution and delivery of the single bill in suit by the defendant's testator, then the plaintiff is entitled to recover, notwithstanding the evidence offered by the defendant, tending to show that the deceased was not in need of money at the time the note was given, and the plaintiff had not the money to lend. (3) That it is not competent to the defendant to impeach or question the consideration of the note sued on, and the only matter for the jury to consider under the pleadings is whether the deceased executed and delivered the note as claimed by the plaintiff; and, if the jury find such execution and delivery, the plaintiff is entitled to recover, unless the jury further find that the note sued on was procured by the fraud of the plaintiff; and the jury is further instructed that there is no legally sufficient evidence for the jury in this case, from which they may find that the said single bill was procured by the fraud of the plaintiff."

It was to the giving of these instructions by the court that the defendant excepted; and the question is whether, under the pleadings and evidence, the jury were properly instructed, in accordance with the well-settled...