Reliable Finance Co. v. Baldrate
| Decision Date | 26 June 1935 |
| Citation | 196 N.E. 849,291 Mass. 150 |
| Parties | RELIABLE FINANCE CO. v. BALDRATE et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Action by the Reliable Finance Company against Oscar Baldrate Fiorentina Festa, and another. From an order of the Appellate Division dismissing a report of the district court, who found for plaintiff in the penal sum of the bond for $400. Fiorentina Festa appeals.
Order affirmed.
Appeal from Appellate Division, District Court of Springfield Western District; Spooner, Judge.
J. F Egan, of Springfield, for defendant Festa.
The plaintiff brought an action against the defendant Oscar Baldrate and attached certain of his goods. To dissolve that attachment Baldrate delivered a bond on which there appeared his name as principal and those of his wife Dita Baldrate and one Fiorentina Festa as sureties. This bond was conditioned upon the failure of Oscar Baldrate to pay the amount of judgment in the action within thirty days after final judgment.
The present action is upon the bond. The plaintiff after setting out the above facts alleges in its declaration that more than thirty days have elapsed since the rendition of final judgment in the original action, and that nothing has been paid upon it. The defendants Oscar and Dita Baldrate have been defaulted. The answer of the defendant Festa denies her signature and contains a general denial. There was evidence before the trial judge tending to show that, after Oscar and Dita Baldrate signed the bond, the husband gave it to his wife and sent her to see Mrs. Festa, who had known the Baldrates for fifteen years and lived nearby. Mrs. Baldrate brought a paper to the home of Mrs. Festa, which she requested her to sign after telling her the paper would make no trouble. Mrs. Festa, being unable to read or write, told her daughter, then twenty-two years of age, to sign the paper for her, which she did in the presence of her mother. The bond was returned to Oscar Baldrate by a girl known to him by sight, who lived near the defendant Festa, with the name of the latter on it. The bond was received in evidence subject to the objection and claim for report of the defendant Festa. No evidence of the date of the final judgment was offered.
The trial judge found that Mrs. Festa signed the bond through her daughter as agent and delivered it to Baldrate for the purpose of delivering it to the plaintiff. Requests for rulings that there was no evidence that the signature on the bond was Mrs. Festa's were denied, and objection to the introduction of the bond in evidence was...
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