Manor National Bank v. Lowery

Citations

• 242 Pa. 559
• 89 A. 678
• 1914 Pa. LEXIS 691

Syllabus

<p>Judgments — Rule to open judgment — Husband and wife — Wife as surety for husband — Case for jury — Evidence.</p> <p>1. On a petition by a wife for a rule to open a judgment entered upon a single bill executed by her and her husband, alleging that she had signed the note as surety for her husband, the court opened the judgment as to her and awarded an issue to try the question raised by the petition. At the trial it appeared that the husband had arranged with the cashier of plaintiff bank for a loan of $1,500; that the wife had been taken to the bank by her husband, had signed the note and had immediately left; that a certificate was then issued to the husband for $1,000, to a third person for $300 in payment of a mortgage on land of the wife, which payment the bank insisted on so that the judgment when entered might be a first lien upon her land; that after the payment of discount and expenses the balance was credited to the husband; and that the $1,000 was used by the husband to pay for certain stock standing in his name on the books of a corporation. The plaintiff’s cashier testified that the loan was made to the wife and not to her husband, and that she requested that the money be appropriated as her husband should direct. The wife denied that she had had anything to do with negotiating the loan. Meld, that the questions whether the wife was surety for her husband and whether the bank knew of it at the time of the loan were for the jury and that a judgment in favor of the wife should be sustained.</p> <p>2. The court in such case made no error in admitting evidence to show the application by the husband of the principal parts of the proceeds of the note subsequent to the loan, without showing that the bank had knowledge of such intended use when the loan was made, as it thereby was shown that the loan was for the use of the husband. This evidence corroborated the more direct testimony that at the time the loan was made the bank knew how it was to be applied a