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101 Ala. 162

Hauerwas v. Goodloe

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided November 15, 1893

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1893-11-15

Tried before the PIou. W. P. Chitwood. This was an action brought by J. C. Goodloe, as receiver of the Florence National Bank, against J. A. Hauerwas, Louis Levin and Osworth Breuss ; and was founded on a promissory note. The defendants, by special plea, setup the defense that the plaintiff was a banker doing business in the State of Alabama, and that it discounted said note at a greater rate of interest than 8 per cent, in violation' of the penal statutes of Alabama.

Relies on Burns & Co. v. Moore & McGee · Dodson v. Harris · Aldridge v. Br. Bank

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1893-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently October 1938

9 state decisions

4018931900191019201930decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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STONE, 0. J.

¶1The note sued on is copied in the bill of exceptions. It is dated March 15, 1891, which was a Sunday. The presumption is that it bears its true date ; and the burden of overcoming that presumption rests on him who asserts the contrary. In other words, it was on the plaintiff to prove that it was executed on a day which *165was not Sunday. — Dodson v. Harris, 10 Ala. 566; Aldridge v. Br. Bank, 17 Ala. 45; Burns v. Moore, 76 Ala. 339. If executed on Sunday it could not be the subject of a recovery .

¶2As a general rule witnesses can only testify to facts within their knowledge. They can not testify to their belief that a fact exists. This rule has exceptions, but there was no question in this case which brought it within any of the exceptions. There was no error in receiving testimony that the body of the note sued on was in Tice’s handwriting, and that he, Tice, did not become an employé of the bank until after March 15,1891. This tended to prove the note did not bear its true. date. There was no authority for introducing the bank book in evidence .

¶3All contracts hostile to, or violative of the constitution or laws, or offensive to the public policy of the United States, are invalid, and a recovery can not be had upon them. — 3 Brick. Dig. 145, §61.

¶4There were several errors committed in the trial of this case. • We need not specify them. The principles declared above will be a sufficient guide for another trial.

¶5Reversed and remanded.

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