North Nat'l Bank v. Hamlin

• Decision Date: 21 October 1878
• Citation: 125 Mass. 506
• Parties: North National Bank v. Henry H. Hamlin
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

125 Mass. 506

North National Bank v. Henry H. Hamlin

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

October 21, 1878

Suffolk. Contract upon a promissory note for $ 1,815.09, made by the defendant payable to his own order, indorsed by Robert W Dresser & Co., to whom it was delivered by the defendant and for whom it was discounted by the plaintiff. Answer. A general denial.

At the trial in the Superior Court, before Wilkinson, J., the evidence tended to show that on November 24, 1875, two days after the maturity of the note, which had been protested for non-payment at Norwich, Conn. and the endorsers duly notified, the plaintiff charged off a balance of $ 686, which stood upon its books to the credit of Dresser & Co., who kept an account there, and, about the first of the following month, sent them, with their pass-book and the checks of the month, the paper of which a copy is printed in the margin. ^[*] This paper was written by the plaintiff's cashier, who testified that the letters "ch" near the bottom thereof meant "charged." Dresser had died and his firm had failed in the mean time; at the time when the balance was charged off, and the paper sent Dresser & Co., the note in suit was the only claim due against them in the hands of the plaintiff, which, however, held other notes not then due upon which Dresser & Co. were endorsers, to none of which, so far as it appeared, the defendant was a party. The plaintiff's president and cashier testified that they did not intend, at the time of the transaction above stated, to apply the $ 686 to the note in suit exclusively, but that they held it to be applied to any claim or claims against Dresser & Co., to which they had a right to apply it that the sum in question was taken from the general funds of the bank when it was charged off, and deposited by the cashier in a trunk, where it remained until a final dividend in bankruptcy was paid by the surviving partner of Dresser & Co., when it was taken from the trunk and replaced in the general funds; and that the plaintiff rendered the surviving partner an account, at the commencement of the bankruptcy proceedings, in which all claims which it then had against Dresser & Co., absolute or contingent, were charged, and all payments received on their account credited. It further appeared that the first item on the debit side of the account was the note in suit, charged at its full amount and in the same line, upon the credit side,...