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114 Mass. 348

Emerson v. Burns

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided January 15, 1874

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1874-01-15

Contract to recover the amount of two promissory notes made by the defendant payable to his own order and indorsed in blank. At the trial in the Superior Court, before Brigham, C. J., the signatures of the defendant were admitted, the notes were read in evidence, and the plaintiff rested his case.

Relies on National Bank of North America v. Kirby

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1874-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently January 1931

4 state decisions

201874188018901900191019201930decided

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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Colt, J.

¶1The court ruled in substance that the possession of the note in suit afforded a presumption that the plaintiff took it before maturity for a good consideration, and directed a verdict for the plaintiff. But where original illegality of consideration is shown, the presumption which applies where there is only failure or want of consideration is not sufficient to support the plaintiff’s case. It is well settled that upon proof that a promissory note is founded in illegality or was obtained or put in circulation fraudulently, an indorsee, before he can recover in a suit upon it, must show that he gave value for it; it is not first incumbent on the defendant to show the contrary. And this because of the temptation which the original holder of such a note must always have to pass it into other hands for the mere purpose of collection, and without the payment of a consideration therefor. Sistermans v. Field, 9 Gray, 331. Holden v. Cosgrove, 12 Gray, 216. National Bank of North America v. Kirby, 108 Mass. 497.

¶2Exceptions sustained.

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