People's Bank v. Stewart

117 S.W. 99, 136 Mo. App. 24, 1909 Mo. App. LEXIS 5
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedMarch 9, 1909
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 117 S.W. 99 (People's Bank v. Stewart) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People's Bank v. Stewart, 117 S.W. 99, 136 Mo. App. 24, 1909 Mo. App. LEXIS 5 (Mo. Ct. App. 1909).

Opinion

REYNOLDS, P. J.

(after stating the facts).— Taking up the proposition as to the modification of four of the instructions asked by appellant, we cannot notice this exception because, while the brief of the learned counsel for appellant sets out what they claim was addéd to these instructions by the court, it does not appear by the bill of exceptions that those were the additions made by the court. We are therefore shut off from considering this assigned error as ground for reversal. Assuming, however, that the clause added by the court to these instructions was, as stated by counsel to be, “unless you further find and believe that the plaintiff accepted from Roley & Co., in full satisfaction of defendant’s liability on the said orders, a demand note of the said Roley & Co., intending then and there to relieve the 'defendant from such liability on his said order,” we will remark that under the pleadings in the case that addition should not have been made to the instructions asked by appellant, but, as before observed, in the state of the record we cannot reverse for that error. We are, however, compelled to reverse this case for an error that undoubtedly was prejudicial to the appellant, exception to the ruling of that court at the time that it occurred having been duly taken and saved. That error consisted in allowing respondent, over the objection of appellant, to show by the cashier of the bank while under cross-examination, that the bank had refused to sue Roley & Co., and the two Thorps and that, therefore, the plaintiff in this action should not be permitted to recover at all, until it had shown that it had exhausted its remedy; that under any theory of law the defendant could only be surety. The court al-' lowed this to be done over the objection and exception [31]*31of the appellant. This was a fatal error. This same error runs through instructions Nos.-1, 2 and 5, given at the instance of the respondent. By instruction No. 1, the jury -were told that even though they believe from the evidence that respondent executed and delivered the several orders sued on, authorizing the appellant to pay Roley & Co. certain sums of money, and even though they found that plaintiff did pay Roley & Co. the amounts or any part thereof, if they further found from the evidence that the orders simply authorized plaintiff to pay the money acting as surety or guarantor for the repayment of the same by Roley & Co., and that if after the date of the orders, Roley & Co. deposited with the plaintiff sufficient funds to repay the money obtained by the order, and that the plaintiff failed and neglected to appropriate and apply the deposits to the payment of the debt of Roley & Co., for which the defendant stood surety or guarantor, and failed to notify defendant that the indebtedness was not paid until after plaintiff had settled with the firm and had accepted their promissory note for the amounts covering the orders, and if they further find and believe that the bank did so receive and accept such notes, then plaintiff is entitled to recover in this action. The second instruction, in effect, told the jury that the orders sued on were different from demand notes and although the jury might believe that the defendant executed the orders, yet if they believed that plaintiff refused ' to allow Roley & Co. to .check against the orders, unless they were given demand notes and took the demand notes from Roley & Co., in payment of the orders, and credited the amount thereof to the account of Roley '& Co. before allowing them to check against the account, and afterwards purposely threw the orders in the waste basket, then defendant is not obligated by the orders and your verdict should be for the defendant. By the fifth instruction given at the instance of respondent, the jury were told that if they [32]*32believed from the evidence that the only orders that were given to plaintiff, signed by defendant, were accepted and received by plaintiff for the purpose of holding defendant as surety for Roley & Co. and to reimburse plaintiff for the overdrafts for the particular debts for which they were given, and that afterwards plaintiff had a settlement with Roley & Oo. and accepted the demand notes of Roley & Oo. in payment of the orders, then their verdict should be for the defendant. It will be noticed that all through these instructions the court proceeded upon the theory that the defendant was either a surety and had been released .or that he had been discharged by the taking of other notes, or that the orders sued on had been extinguished by the acceptance of the notes of Roley & Co. There is no specific exception apparent in the abstract, and we have read it very carefully, to the admission of evidence tending to prove the payment of the orders and their extinguishment by the demand and acceptance of the notes of Roley & Oo.; in point of fact, a careful reading of the proceedings at the trial, as disclosed by the abstract, convinces us that it would have been difficult to interpose a specific objection of that kind until the evidence was all in, and it is possible that it was impracticable to have raised that objection until the evidence was in, but the objection to the theory on which the case was tried is saved by exception to instructions given — and the very point of complaint and exception to the addition by the court of the proposition or fact of payment of the orders, if the part of the instruction set out by them as that added by the court is correct, is bottomed on the defense that no payment had been pleaded. Beyond question, when the instructions were given by the court at the instance of the respondent, the issues of suretyship and of discharge of the surety and of the payment of the orders by the notes and of the failure of the bank to prosecute the principal to the hurt of the surety, was submitted [33]*33to the jury by the instructions, to the giving of which instructions exception has been duly saved. As we have shown, there was specific exception saved to the introduction of testimony tending to show that the respondent was a surety and had been released by the acts of the bank. This is an error that we are at liberty to notice as ground for reversal. As will be noted, the counts, upon which the case went to the jury, four of them, are practically alike, differing only in the dates and amounts of the orders upon which they are founded, and they, in effect, charge that the respondent, by his written orders of certain dates, duly executed and delivered by him to plaintiff, which orders could not be filed by reason of their being lost, ordered and requested plaintiff to advance to the partnership of Roley & Co., such sum as was needed to meet the payroll of the partnership due to and including that date; that the plaintiff accepted the orders and advanced to Roley & Co., on the order and request of defendant, the sums then due by the partnership on account of its payroll, stating the amount advanced under each order; that the respondent had notice of the acceptance by plaintiff of the written order and of the fact that the plaintiff had paid the sums on account of the payroll under the orders aforesaid, and that no part of the sums mentioned in the orders had been paid by defendant or by the partnership but the same remains due and unpaid. That tendered a. plain issue. The answer to this, as noted, is, first, a general denial, then a denial of the partnership of respondent in the firm of Roley & Co. (and that claim of partnership was abandoned at the trial), whereupon the answer proceeds to deny specifically the making or executing of either of the orders in either of the counts set out,

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Bluebook (online)
117 S.W. 99, 136 Mo. App. 24, 1909 Mo. App. LEXIS 5, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/peoples-bank-v-stewart-moctapp-1909.