Turner v. Rogers

• Decision Date: 21 September 1876
• Citation: 121 Mass. 12
• Parties: John M. Turner v. George E. Rogers
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

121 Mass. 12

John M. Turner v. George E. Rogers

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

September 21, 1876

Hampshire. Contract upon a promissory note for $ 203.60 signed by the defendant, dated January 27, 1875, and payable to the plaintiff three months after date. The answer contained a general denial, set up want and failure of consideration, failure on the part of the plaintiff to perform a condition precedent to the payment of the note, and fraud in procuring the same. The defendant also filed a declaration in set-off.

At the trial in the Superior Court, before Wilkinson, J., the due execution of the note was admitted, and the defendant offered to show, in support of the allegations in the answer, the following facts:

That the note in suit was, upon the terms hereinafter mentioned given by the defendant to the plaintiff in renewal of, and by way of substitution for, a certain other note then outstanding and unpaid, held by the plaintiff against a certain company called the Pegging Machine Manufacturing Company, signed by the father of the defendant, as treasurer of the company, and by him indorsed, in his individual capacity and as payee of the note, to the plaintiff, in payment of certain premiums due from himself and the defendant, upon certain policies of insurance issued to each of them by the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company through the plaintiff, as agent of the same; that this last mentioned note had been several times renewed in favor of the father of the defendant, and for his accommodation solely that the defendant was at no time a party thereto nor in any way liable thereon, he being at the time it was given in the employ of the machine company as book-keeper, and having been duly charged upon its books for his proportion of the amount represented by the note, and holding a full receipt therefor from the plaintiff; that, before the note fell due, the parties to it, namely, the Pegging Machine Company and the father of the defendant, had both become insolvent, and the note was retained in the hands of the plaintiff as of little or no value; that a further premium having become due in the mean time upon the policy of the father, he was applied to by the plaintiff to pay it and save the policy from cancellation; that, because of the inability of the father to respond, by reason of his embarrassments, the defendant was then applied to for the same purpose, and for a like reason could...