Redden v. Lambert

Citations

• 112 La. 740
• 36 So. 668
• 1904 La. LEXIS 456

Syllabus

<p>NOTES — INDORSEMENT—SURETIES—ORDER OF INDORSEMENT — PRACTICE—OBJECTION TO EVIDENCE.</p> <p>1. The time when, or the order in which, indorsements were made on a promissory note,, may be shown by parol.</p> <p>2. The words “indorse” and “indorser” have a popular as well as a technical meaning; hence from the circumstance that they, and they alone,, were used in a conversation in which a person was asked and consented to put his name on the back of a note for the purpose of increasing its commercial value, it does not necessarily follow that the person signed as indorser merely, and not as surety.</p> <p>3. Protest is necessary as against the indorser of a promissory note, but not as against the maker or the surety; hence the act of a bank in causing a promissory note to be protested, and the indorser to be notified, gives rise to a strong inference that the indorser was considered to be an indorser in the technical sense, and. not a surety.</p> <p>4. Where a note is indorsed by the payee and by another person, the presumption will be-that the other person is a surety, or an indorser in the technical sense, according to the order of the signatures. If his signature is above that, of the payee, he.will be presumed to be a surety ; and if it is below, he will be presumed to be an indorser. A bank president is presumed to know this. Hence when, in transferring an indorsed note of which his bank is payee, he puts his name above that of the indorser, his act gives rise' to a strong implication that he did so because he knew the indorser was not a surety, but an indorser in the technical sense.</p> <p>5. In this case the note was protested one day late, so that the indorser was released if he was an indorser in the technical sense, and not a surety; and thereafter the bank held the note-for two years and a half without exacting payment of the indorser, and then transferred the-note to the plaintiff without recourse. Meld, that the conduct of the bank in thus protesting th