Davidson v. Peticolas

Citations

• 34 Tex. 27

Syllabus

<p>1. Whether a bill of exchange was a “ contract between merchant and merchant,” within the meaning of the sixth section of the act of March 20, 1848, (Paschal’s Digest, note 295,) since repealed, was to be determined by the character, of the drawer and the payee of the instrument. If they were not merchants, the holder of the bill could not, by virtue of the fourth section of that act, fix the liability of the drawer and the indorser by protest and notice.</p> <p>2. If the drawer as well as the payee of the hill was not a merchant, the bill was not mercantile paper, within the meaning of the statute of March 20,1848, above referred to; and the fact that all the other parties to the bill, payee, acceptor and indorsers, were merchants, could not impart to it such mercantile character.</p> <p>3. Evcry„indorsement of a bill of exchange implies a new contract between the indorser and the subsequent holders; and though all indorsers may be sued together with the drawer, yet each is liable on his own contract, express or implied.</p> <p>4. This court takes judicial cognizance that terms of the district courts were held at the times prescribed for them by the statutes of the State.</p> <p>5. The provisions of the act of March 20, 1848, (Paschal’s Digest, articles 229, 230, 231,) requiring suits to fix the liability of drawers and in- ■ dorsers to be brought to the first or the second term of the court, cannot be regarded as a statute of limitation within the meaning of the forty-third section of the twelfth article of the State Constitution of 1869, which declares the statutes of limitation to have been suspended by the so-called act of secession of January 28, 1861.</p> <p>6. An enactment of another one of the United States cannot be exemplified as evidence by a certificate of the Secretary of State of this State, unless it be set forth in the certificate that the enactment was found in a book “ purporting to be printed under the authority ” of the State in question. The