Pineman v. Faulkner
Decision Date | 12 September 1917 |
Docket Number | (No. 70.) |
Citation | 93 S.E. 384 |
Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Parties | PINEMAN. v. FAULKNER. |
Appeal from Superior Court, Edgecombe County; Whedbee, Judge.
Action by G. C. Fineman against J. B. Faulkner. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.
This is an action against the administrator of Mamie Faulkner upon a note for the purchase of an Edison machine. The defense set up by the administrator is that the note was void because contrary to public policy. Counsel agreed upon the following statement of facts:
James M. Norfleet and A. W. MacNair, both of Tarboro, for appellant.
Don Gilliam, of Tarboro, for appellee.
CLARK, C. J. [1] Mr. Gilliam, the counsel for the plaintiff, is absent in the army, but we think the principles covering this case are admirably summed up in the following quotation, which with a slight modification is taken from the brief:
It would be singular if the purchaser of an article of this kind, which is not ordinarily used for immoral purposes, can refuse payment or her administrator can be protected from payment, upon the ground that the purchaser was a person of bad character or engaged in an illegal occupation. It would be as reasonable to say that such persons are exempt from liability to pay for provisions or for clothing or anything else. This would be, indeed, encouragement to them, unless it should debar them from all such purchases, neither of which the law intends. Suppose a merchant or a grocer should sell provisions or clothing in the ordinary course of dealing, to one whom he happens to know is engaged in illicit distilling or retailing intoxicating liquors or in any other unlawful occupation, without aiding him in his unlawful purposes; can such illicit dealer plead his own illegal occupation to prevent payment for the articles thus bought?
In State v. Bevers, 86 N. C. 595, it is said that to defeat the plaintiff's recovery— "it must appear that the very party who is seeking aid from the court participated in the unlawful purpose: Indeed, it is said that the very test of the application of the principle is whether the plaintiff can establish his case otherwise than through the medium of an illegal transaction, to which he was himself a party."
In this case it is agreed as a fact: "That plaintiff had no interest in the business of defendant's intestate and in no way aided her in carrying it on, other than that the mere sale of the musical instrument to her might be said to do so; that the sale to her was in the legal course of business, and similar in terms, and in every other way, to other sales made by him from time to time."
In Armfield v. Tate, 29 N. C. 258, it was held that:
"The circumstances that the vendor was informed, before the completion of the contract, that the vendee intended the place as a resi-dence for his kept mistress, does not vitiate the contract"
—the court saying that the fact that the vendee intended to use the house for an immoral purpose did not destroy the contract, for the use to which he intended to put the property after he became the owner of it should not...
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Security Finance Co. v. Hendry
...was the plaintiff that had violated the foregoing statute by engaging in the prohibited transaction out of which the suit arose. In Fineman v. Faulkner, supra, the plaintiff had not violated any statute, but was suing the administrator of Mamie Faulkner who was engaged in an illegal busines......
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