Gandy v. Weckerly

Citations

• 220 Pa. 285
• 69 A. 858
• 1908 Pa. LEXIS 767

Syllabus

<p>Promissory notes — Contemporaneous parol agreement — Parol evidence— Evidence — Fraud.</p> <p>Where a person is induced by a contemporaneous parol promise to sign a promissory note which he would not have signed, except for the promise, a subsequent breach of the promise is a fraud upon his rights, and he may set up the breach as a defense to the note, and prove the promise by parol evidence.</p> <p>In an action upon such a note where .the defendant sets up in his affidavit of defense the promise and the breach thereof, and avers that he expects to prove the facts averred, the presumption is that he will do so by proper proof at the trial. He is not required in his affidavit of defense to set forth the manner in which the facts therein alleged will be proved, nor the evidence by which they will be substantiated.</p> <p>In an action upon a promissory note for $1,250 it appeared that the plaintiff, the payee of the note, was the president of a corporation of which the defendant, the maker of the note, was treasurer. The corporation being in want of funds, the defendant was requested by plaintiff to give financial aid in the emergency. The defendant in an affidavit of defense averred that the plaintiff “proposed to me that if I would loan to said company the sum of $1,250, taking its note therefor at one year, before which time he said it would be easily able to pay it, he would sell to me 200 shares of its stock for the sum of $1,250, and take my note therefor, which note I would not be called upon to pay except out of and from the moneys to be repaid to me by said company in payment of its note held by me as aforesaid. He said he would make the note to him payable at the expiration of one year, because within that time the note of the company held by me would be paid,' but that if from any cause whatever the amount of the note was not paid to me, I would not be called upon by him to pay the note to be given by me to him in payment of said stock. Relying upon this