Deposit National Bank v. Beaver Trust Co.

Citations

• 68 Pa. Super. 468
• 1917 Pa. Super. LEXIS 151

Syllabus

<p>Promissory notes — Defenses—Suit by endorsee — Illegal contract.</p> <p>In an action by a hank on a promissory note, -which the bank had discounted, against the endorser, the defendant cannot set up as a defense that the noto had been made by a corporation in pursuance of an illegal contract with another corporation, and that this contract resulted in an issue of stock, for some portion of which the company received no consideration, if it appears that the defendant was the president and chief owner of the stock of the corporation making the note, that he was a party to the contract, and that the plaintiff bank had no interest whatever in either corporation. The endorser iá estopped by his contract of endorsement from such a defense.</p> <p>No man can be heard to allege his own turpitude to relieve himself of a liability, resulting to him as the consequence of an illegal contract, to which he was a party.</p> <p>Where a party seeking to recover is obliged to make out his case by showing an illegal contract or transaction or through the medium of an illegal contract or transaction, then he is not entitled to recover any advances made by him in connection with the contract or money due him as profit derived from the contract; hut when the advances have been made upon a new contract, remotely connected with an original illegal contract or transaction and the title or right of the party to recover is not dependent upon that contract, hut his case may he proved without reference to it, then he is entitled to recover.</p>