Robinson v. Barnett

Citations

• 19 Fla. 670

Syllabus

<p>1. Instructions given by the court to a jury must be construed in connection with the evidence given on the trial.</p> <p>%. The plaintiff sued the defendant as endorser on a in'omissory note. The defendant claimed that the endorsement was a forgery; that he wrote the words “protest waived” over such endorsement on the day the note matured only for the purpose of saving the trouble and expense of protest. The evidence was conflicting as to the knowledge of the plaintiff of the fact that defendant claimed the signature a forgery at the time those words were written, and that such knowledge only came to him six weeks or more after the maturity of the note, when he brought his action. The court instructed the jury that if the plaintiff was misled to his injury or loss by such act of the defendant in writing the words “protest waived” over what purported to be his signature, and was induced to sleep on his rights, and not to take measures to secure or enforce payment of the note, the defendant was es-topped : Reld, That such charge was not error.</p> <p>3. A waiver of protest upon a note may be made by the endorser not only at the time he endorses the note, but at any time before maturity or on the day of maturity.</p> <p>4. When such waiver of jirotest is made after the execution of the note, or upon the day of maturity, no new consideration is necessary to support it.</p> <p>5. Courts are not called upon to instruct juries upon a hypothesis that does not exist in the case. They may decline to charge upon any point of law not based upon the evidence or warranted by it.</p> <p>6. It is not necessary for a court, even at the request of counsel, to repeat propositions of law which he has already given in his charge to the jury.</p>