Edleman v. Byers & Gilmore

Citations

• 75 Ill. 367

Syllabus

<p>1. Depositions — substantial compliance with the statute required. Every provision of the statute regulating the mode of taking depositions must be substantially complied with. Where a note, professedly an exhibit referred to in a deposition, was not attached or inclosed with the commission and interrogatories sealed and sent to the clerk, but a part only of the papers were so sent by the commissioner, while the note, interrogatories and commission, and other papers, were sent by him to the party’s attorneys : Held, that the deposition should have been suppressed on motion.</p> <p>2. Fraud and circumvention. On the trial of an issue, whether the execution of a note was procured by fraud and circumvention, it is error for the court, in instructions, to limit the mode necessary to be shown, in order to constitute the defense, as against an assignee of the note, to false representations on the part of those obtaining it, as it is impracticable to specify the modes by which such execution is procured. 3. Same —false representation not essential to defense. It is not indispensable to the defense that the note sued on was procured by fraud and circumvention, that the parties obtaining it should have made some positive affirmations in regard to the character of the instrument. It may be done by acts, as well as representations, whereby the defendant, by some adroit maneuver, process or device, without knowing it, signs a promissory note, or puts his name where one can be written above it. Such a transaction, in substance and essence, is a mere confidence game.</p>