Carroll Co. Savings Bank v. Strother

Citations

• 22 S.C. 552
• 1885 S.C. LEXIS 50

Syllabus

<p>1. Generally a guaranty is a collateral undertaking, and it is essential to its existence that there should be some one liable as principal; and if there be no valid claim against the principal, there is no existing contract of guaranty.</p> <p>2. Judgment rendered by the judge without a jury, against persons alleged to be guarantors, without proof of demand against the principal, upon an instrument never proved, nor fully befoi-e the court in pleadings or evidence, set aside, the answers being held to have sufficiently raised issues requiring proof.</p> <p>3. An admission that defendants “signed an instrument of writing supposed to be the paper sued on, but cannot be -positive without an inspection of said paper, and cannot say whether the endorsement was before or after due or contained a guaranty” — was not such an admission as would justify a judgment without proof of the instrument.</p>