Symonds v. Riley
| Decision Date | 22 June 1905 |
| Parties | SYMONDS v. RILEY. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Daniel N. Crowley, for plaintiff.
Nathan D. Pratt and John J. Devine, for defendant.
This is an action of contract to recover upon four checks, all drawn by the defendant to the order of one K. F. Gorman, and indorsed by her. One of them was drawn on the Appleton National Bank of Lowell and the others upon the Second National Bank of Manchester. Three of them were indorsed by the defendant before delivery as P.J. Riley & Co. They were drawn under the following circumstances: K. F. Gorman, the payee, was a clerk in the office of one Sibley. There was an arrangement between Sibley and the defendant for an exchange of checks and notes for the accommodation of the defendant. The checks in suit were given pursuant to this arrangement. The defendant made them payable to Miss Gorman of his own motion, and they were indorsed by her, and deposited in the National Exchange Bank of Salem, of which the plaintiff was cashier, to the credit of Sibley as cash, and Sibley was permitted by the cashier to draw against them to an equal amount. When the checks became due, they were not paid by the defendant, and were duly protested. Thereupon the bank insisted that the plaintiff should make good the checks, and he did so, and took the checks. This was after the checks had been dishonored. The defendant neglected to pay them on the ground that he was entitled to set off against them certain indebtedness which he claimed was due him from Sibley on account of checks and mercantile transactions. The case was sent to an auditor, who found and reported in favor of the plaintiff. At the trial the plaintiff put in the checks and the auditor's report, and rested. The defendant thereupon asked the court to rule that the plaintiff could not recover and offered to show that when the checks were delivered to Sibley he was indebted to the defendant in a sum greater than the total amount of the checks, and asked the court to rule that, 'it being undisputed that the plaintiff took the checks twenty days after their protest, he took them subject to the equities between the defendant and said Sibley.' The court declined to rule as requested, or to admit the evidence that was offered, and directed the jury to find for the plaintiff for the amount found due by the auditor, with interest. The case is here on exceptions by the defendant to the refusal to rule as requested and to the rulings that were made.
We think that the rulings were right. The checks were negotiable instruments (Bill v. Stewart, 156 Mass. 508, 31 N.E. 386), though differing somewhat from negotiable promissory notes, and as such were subject to the law relating to negotiable paper. They were dishonored when the plaintiff took them, and the defendant contends that they were subject to any equities existing between him and Sibley. They were not made payable to Sibley, and whether in an action against him by the payee, Gorman, the defendant could have pleaded in set-off Sibley's alleged indebtedness to him--as to which see Tyler v. Boyce, 135 Mass. 558 Sheldon v. Kendall, 7 Cush. 217, and Rev. Laws, c 174, § 5--it is not necessary to consider. We assume for the purposes of this case that he could. But that does not help the defendant. The checks were deposited in the bank to Sibley's credit in the usual course of...
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