Benton v. German-American National Bank

26 S.W. 975, 122 Mo. 332, 1894 Mo. LEXIS 68
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedMay 28, 1894
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 26 S.W. 975 (Benton v. German-American National Bank) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Benton v. German-American National Bank, 26 S.W. 975, 122 Mo. 332, 1894 Mo. LEXIS 68 (Mo. 1894).

Opinion

Bbaoe, J.

This is a bill in equity to cancel a negotiable promissory note and to recover interest paid thereon, against the holder, charging that the note is without consideration, and was procured by fraudulent misrepresentations, of which the defendant had notice.

On the sixth of July, 1889, W. E. Wyman was defendant’s cashier, and also secretary and treasurer [334]*334of the Kansas City Glue and Fertilizer Company. The company was largely indebted to the bank. The evidence tends to prove that on that day the said Wyman as secretary and treasurer of the company, agreed to sell the plaintiff, R. E. Benton, and he agreed to buy, fifty shares of the capital' stock of the company of the face value of $5,000, for $3,000, to be paid for by the negotiable promissory note, at ninety days, of himself and one O. H. Brown, for that amount with interest added, payable to the said Wyman as cashier of the bank, secured by the deposit as collateral of the certificates of certain shares of stock in the Kansas City Yarnish Company, and of the certificates for the said fifty shares of stock of the Glue and Fertilizer Company, to be thereafter issued, with the understanding •that said note was to be discounted by the bank for the benefit of said company. The note was so drawn and ■afterwards on the eighth of July, 1889, was discounted by the bank and the proceeds placed to the credit of the company on the books of the bank.

At maturity, on the seventh of October, 1889, this note was taken up and a new note given, signed by the ■same parties with the same recitals as to collaterals, payable to W. F. Sargent, cashier of said bank, at ninety days, for the same amount with interest added. Up to this time, the certificate of stock to Benton had not been issued, and the deposit of that stock consisted merely of the recital in the note: “Certificates No.’s -fifty shares of stock of the Kansas City Glue and Fertilizer Company, being ten shares each.”

On the twentieth of December, 1889, certificate number 65 for fifty shares of the capital stock of the •company was issued to Benton by the company, by whom it was thereafter indorsed and delivered to the hank, and held as collateral. At the maturity of the last mentioned note, on the eighth of January, 1890, [335]*335the same was taken up and a new note given, payable •at four months to J. Gr. Strean, cashier, at the bank, for the same amount with interest added, signed by Benton and Brown as before, and also.by the wife of R. E. Benton, his coplaintiff, Nellie E. Benton, in which it was recited that said certificate of stock number •65 is deposited as collateral security.

This note, at maturity, was renewed by a like note signed by the same parties for thirty days, dated May 11, 1890, which at its maturity was again renewed by a like note dated June 13, 1890, signed by the same parties, payable ninety days after date, and 'this seems to be the note which the plaintiffs seek to have cancelled in this action, commenced at some time after its maturity — but when, this record does not show — in which a final hearing on the merits was had in the Jackson circuit court, on the fifth day of December, 1891, and the plaintiff’s bill dismissed, and judgment rendered against them for costs, from which they appeal.

I. The court made no finding of the facts and gave no declarations of law, consequently the particular ground upon which the bill was dismissed does not appear. It is perfectly clear, however, upon the face of the •evidence that the plaintiff, R. E. Benton, wasnot induced to enter into the contract of July 6,1889, with Wyman, in pursuance of which he executed his note of that •date, by any false and fraudulent misrepresentations of Wyman, of any fact affecting the value of the stock of the company which he was to get for his note, and •equally as clear that his wife, the plaintiff, was. not induced by any such misrepresentations to attach her name to the note of January 8, 1890, and the subsequent notes in renewal thereof. This is virtually conceded in the argument in this court, but it is insisted that the original note was without consideration, of which fact the bank had notice at the time it discounted [336]*336it, and that the bank gave nothing for it. Hence the plaintiff’s bill ought to have been sustained. So far as the evidence shows, the note was discounted by the bank in the usual and ordinary way in which such business is done, and the net proceeds passed to the credit of the company on the books of the bank, the bank thereby giving full value for the security whether thereafter those proceeds were applied directly in reducing .the indebtedness of1 the company to .the bank or paid out ' on its check over the counter.

There is nothing in the contention that the bank did not give value for the note. In support of the other contention the plaintiffs introduced the articles of incorporation showing that the company was incorporated in July, 1888, “with a capital stock of $50,000, divided into five hundred shares of $100 each, the whole amount of said stock having been subscribed for, and one-half thereof actually paid up;” and then introduced in evidence the stubs of the stock book of the company showing that prior to the sixth day of July, 1889, there had been issued to divers persons certificates of stock for four hundred and fifty-eight shares of the capital stock of the company, which had not been canceled or recalled, and that on the twentieth day of December, 1889, the same day on which the certificate of fifty shares of stock was issued to Benton, certificates of stock were issued, including his, for three hundred more shares, making, in all, seven hundred and fifty-eight shares issued, as appears by the book, and contend that, although on the twenty-eighth of October, 1889, at a meeting of the stockholders, held in pursuance of law, an increase of the capital stock to $75,000, was authorized by the votes of a majority of the stockholders, yet their' action not having been certified to the secretary of state as required by law, and his certificate evidencing such increase not [337]*337having been issued, such increase of stock was never lawfully made, and, consequently, at tine time the agreement was made, the company did not have original stock subject to its disposal, which could be issued in. discharge of the agreement, of which fact Wyman had knowledge; and he was either guilty of.a fraud, in selling that which he did not have, or he intended the agreement to be discharged out of the increased stock to be thereafter issued, and in either view of the case, although a certificate for fifty shares of the. stock was issued in December, 1889, by the company, and accepted by Benton, it was part of an over issue of stock not authorized, represented no valid stock, and the consideration of the note, therefore, failed; that the knowledge of Wyman was the knowledge of the bank, and that the plaintiffs have the same equities against the note in its hands, that they would have against it in the hands of the company.

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Bluebook (online)
26 S.W. 975, 122 Mo. 332, 1894 Mo. LEXIS 68, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/benton-v-german-american-national-bank-mo-1894.