Reardon v. Murdock
| Decision Date | 01 November 1935 |
| Parties | REARDON v. MURDOCK et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Exceptions from Superior Court, Norfolk County; Morton Judge.
Exceptions overruled.
R. H. Field, C. C. McCarthy, and H. P. Moulton, all of Boston, for plaintiff.
J. Wentworth, of Boston, for defendant Murdock.
W. H. Lewis, of Boston, for defendant Coakley.
This action is brought on a promissory note for $50,000, dated September 22, 1925, signed by the defendant Murdock as maker, payable in six months after date to the order of the defendant Coakley, and indorsed by Coakley. After verdicts for the plaintiff, the case is here on exceptions by each defendant.
Murdock had signed the note as maker while it was still a blank form and had left it with Coakley for the purpose, as Murdock contends and as Coakley admits, of enabling Coakley to raise the sum of $25,000 for Murdock's benefit. Coakley filled out the note by inserting the dates and the amount of $50,000 and his own name as payee, indorsed it and delivered it to one Crowley, since deceased, from whom he received $50,000 which he did not turn over to Murdock. The plaintiff is not a holder in due course, but holds the note only for the purpose of bringing this suit. The case was therefore tried without objection on the theory that the rights of the parties are to be determined as if the action had been brought by Crowley.
We first consider Murdock's exceptions. His defence, as stated in his brief, was that Coakley had no authority to complete and deliver the note and that Crowley was not a holder in due course, but had notice of Coakley's lack of authority and gave no value for the instrument. G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 107, §§ 36, 38, 47, 51 and 75.
There was no error in excluding questions to Coakley and to Murdock intended to show that Coakley did not inform Murdock that he had given the note to Crowley and that Murdock did not know of it until 1930. The time when Murdock learned of the note was not in itself an issue in the case. Coakley had already testified that he did not communicate to Murdock that he had given the note to Crowley, and both Coakley and Murdock testified fully as to the purpose for which Murdock had given the blank note to Coakley, and hence as to Coakley's authority with reference to it.
The judge struck out an answer given by Coakley while testifying as a witness to the effect that Crowley told Coakley shortly before Coakley gave the note to Crowley that Crowley was anxious to help him in an affair in Florida and could let him have $50,000, saying Murdock argues that this was evidence that Crowley intended to make a present to Coakley of the $50,000 in spite of the fact that the note for the same amount was offered by Coakley to Crowley and accepted by him after this talk and before the money was paid over. We attach little importance to the use of the word ‘ give’ in this connection. It might as well have been used in the broad sense of handing over or transferring as in the narrower sense of making a gift. The words ‘ give me my money back’ are inconsistent with the idea of an absolute gift, whatever may have been meant by ‘ when you make your million.’ We think it very doubtful whether this evidence had any probative value at all. If it had, its force was so slight that striking it out could not have affected the verdict in view of the other evidence. It is incredible that there was no relation whatever of mutual exchange between the note and the money.
Turning now to Coakley's exceptions, if we assume that Coakley made a proper motion for a directed verdict as required by Rule 71 of the Superior Court (1932), on the ground that no demand had been made on the maker and no notice of dishonor had been given to Coakley as indorser,...
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