Wm. Glenny Glass Co. v. Taylor

34 S.W. 711, 99 Ky. 24, 1896 Ky. LEXIS 42
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky
DecidedMarch 11, 1896
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 34 S.W. 711 (Wm. Glenny Glass Co. v. Taylor) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wm. Glenny Glass Co. v. Taylor, 34 S.W. 711, 99 Ky. 24, 1896 Ky. LEXIS 42 (Ky. Ct. App. 1896).

Opinion

CHIEF JUSTICE PRYOR

delivered the opinion of the court.

This action at law was instituted by the appellant, the William Glenny Glass Co. against the appellees, Mary D. and Olías. Taylor, in the Bracken Circuit Court on the following note:

“$200.00 ' Washington, D. C., Jan. 2, 1891.
.“Eighteen months after date we, jointly and severally, promise to pay Margaret E. B. Thompson, or order, two hundred dollars f.or value received, with interest at eight per cent, per annum until paid. Payable at the Fourth National Bank, New York, N. Y. “Thomas P. Dudley,
“Mary D. Bradford.”

At the time the note was executed by Mary D. Bradford she was a single woman, but subsequently married co-defendant, Chas. Taylor, who, as is alleged, by reason of his marriage, received property, cash, notes, etc., more than [26]*26sufficient to pay the note in controversy. It is also alleged that the wife owned a tract of land out of which the debt could be made. They ask for judgment and all proper relief.

The defendants resist the recovery on two grounds. The first is a want of consideration; The second that, by the laws of New York, where the note was made payable, the exaction or the agreement to pay a greater rate of interest than six per cent, renders the note or obligation void, and such seems to have been the statute of that State when this note was executed and at the time of the institution of this suit.

As to the plea of no consideration, it appears from the testimony that the principal obligor in the note, Thomas P. Dudley, is a brother ,of Mary D. Bradford (now Taylor), and the note was executed and forwarded by mail to Mrs. Thompson, in New York City, and payable at the Fourth National Bank, to enable the latter, Mrs. Thompson, to raise means for Dudley, who, at that time, was in pecuniary trouble, or in such a condition as required pecuniary aid. Mrs. Taylor says the money raised on the note was used by Mrs. Thompson for her own purposes, her brother receiving no benefit from the proceeds. She only speaks of what she herself knew in regard to the transacción, and evidently had no means of knowing whether the money was or not applied to the benefit of her brother.

The appellant, the assignee of the note, stated that Mrs. Thompson said or wrote to the effect that she wanted the money to aid her in getting a pension, and she admits that she so wrote, but swears that every dollar of the two hundred was applied to the use and benefit of the appellee’s brother; and if she was making a false statement it could have been easily disproved by him. He was never examined as a witness, and, with this positive proof of Mrs. [27]*27Thompson, we are satisfied the money received was applied as intended, by all the parties to the paper.

The consideration being clearly shown, it is only necessary to determine whether or not the judgment below is sustained by the evidence. There was no separation of the legal findings from the findings of fact; but if there was no evidence for the defense, the judgment for the appellees must be reversed.

The brother, for whose benefit the note was executed, signed and delivered the note in Washington City, and, by Mrs. Thompson, was enclosed to his sister at her postoffice in the county of Bracken, in this State, where she resided, and there signed and forwarded to Mrs. Thompson, in New York City.

It is well established that a contract, valid at the place where it is made, is valid everywhere; and also well settled that, if executed with a view to and in reference to the law of the place of performance, it is to be governed by the láw of the place of performance; and, upon this recognized doctrine, it was held below that, although there was a bona fide consideration for the execution of the note, and the proceeds actually applied as intended by all of the parties to the paper, as it was made payable at the Fourth National Bank, in New York, and was enclosed in a letter to the payee directed to her in that city, it was an obligation to be controlled, so far as its validity was concerned, by the statute of that State, that provides: “All bonds,, bills, notes, etc., * * * whereupon or whereby there shall 'be reserved or taken, secured or agreed to be reserved or taken, any greater sum or value for the loan or forbearance of any money, etc.* than as above prescribed (which is six per cent.), shall be void,” etc. Not only so; by another sec[28]*28tion of the statute, the chancellor, upon application, will cancel the note and require it to be delivered over.

This court will take judicial notice of the rate of interest in this State, and the law applicable to contracts vyhere a greater sum than six per cent, interest is agreed to be paid, and will also presume, in the absence of any plea and proof to the contrary, that the note was valid under the law of the place where it was executed by Dudley, and the purpose being to raise money for the latter’s benefit, and there being no indebtedness created in New York by the obligors to the payee in the note, it must be assumed from .the evidence that the parties never contemplated that the law of the State where the note was to be paid should determine its validity. The money was not in fact advanced by the payee on- the note, but was assigned to the appellant, who resided in the State of Ohio, and the money paid by it to Mrs. Thompson for the note paid over to Dudley, for whose benefit it was executed.

The mere fact that the note was made payable in New York and received by the payee in that city, under the circumstances of this case, is not sufficient evidence of the fact that it was intended the law of that State should govern, or its validity to be tested by the statute in regard to usury. We will not assume, nor does the evidence authorize such a conclusion, that the brother living in Washington City and executing the note in that place, and his sister executing the note in Bracken county, Ky., regarded or expected their liability to be determined by the statute of New York, and when sued in Kentucky could defeat the recovery upon the paper on the ground that the charge of the extra interest rendered the entire obligation void.

The note, when signed by Mary D. Bradford in Kentucky, and inclosed to the payee, was an executed instrument, as [29]*29much, so as if the payee had been present and the note delivered to her in Kentucky.

As said in Wayne County Savings Bank v. Lord, 81 New York, 572, “it can not be contended that a party who goes into another State, and there makes an agreement with a citizen of that 'State for the loan or forbearance of money, can render his obligation void by making it payable in another State, according to whose laws the contract would be usurious.”

In the case of Vliet v. Camp, 13 Wis., 198, it is said:“ The law of the place of payment does not necessarily govern the rate of interest which may be contracted for.”

It is a question of intention, and all the facts must be considered in order to determine what law the parties looked to as controlling their rights under the contract, whether the law of the place where the contract was entered into or the law of the place where it was to be performed; nor is the rule here recognized in conflict with the cases heretofore decided by this court in Goddin v. Shipley, 7 B. M., 575; Hyatt v. Bank of Kentucky, 8 Bush, 193; Young v. Harris, 14 B. M., 447.

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Bluebook (online)
34 S.W. 711, 99 Ky. 24, 1896 Ky. LEXIS 42, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wm-glenny-glass-co-v-taylor-kyctapp-1896.