Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

21 Mo. App. 124

Hartman v. Redman

Missouri Court of Appeals

Decided February 23, 1886

Missouri Court of Appeals · decided 1886-02-23

Brace, Judge. The consideration having all passed to the principal before its execution by the principal, and the note having been executed and delivered to the respondents by the principal as his sole and individual note, the appellant’s subsequent signing of said noteas surety at the respondents’ request, andón their presentation of said note for said purpose, was a signing without consideration, was nudum pactum. McMahan v. Geiger, 73 Mo. 145.

Relies on Williams' Admr. v. Williams · Rucker v. Robinson · Hosea v. Rowley

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Reversed and remanded · Decided 1886-02-23

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently April 1926

1 federal appellate · 2 state decisions

1018861890190019101920decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Rombauer, J.,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2This is an action on a promissory note signed by the defendant and one Smith.

¶3The answer contains four separate defences. The substance of the first two is to the effect, that the note was given for an antecedent debt of Smith to the plaintiffs, and was made and delivered to the plaintiffs by Smith as' and for his individual note. That the defendant long after such delivery signed the note as surety for Smith and without any new consideration. The third defence relied on is that by an agreement between the plaintiffs and Smith, without the defendant’s knowledge and consent, the payment of the note was extended, whereby *126the defendant, as surety, was discharged. The fourth defence states an agreement between the plaintiffs, Smith and the'defendant, made subsequently to the execution of the note, to the effect, that the note should be paid with the proceeds of a crop of oats, on which the defendant had a landlord’s lien ; that for the purpose of enabling Smith to make such payment, the defendant waived his lien, whereby he claims a discharge.

¶4The plaintiffs demurred to the entire answer, as constituting no defence. The court sustained the demurrer and the defendant, electing to stand by his answer, judgment was rendered against the defendant.

¶5The third and fourth defences are not well pleaded. 'To discharge a surety, by reason of extension of time of payment, the creditor must do some act by which he deprives himself of the right to proceed at law for the collection of the debt. Rucker v. Robinson, 38 Mo. 154; Hosea v. Rowley, 57 Mo. 357. It does not appear that the plaintiffs have done so in this instance. Nor can the fact aid the defendant, that all parties, subsequently to the creation of the debt, agreed that it should be paid out of a particular fund, since it does not appear that the plaintiffs had any control over the fund.

¶6The first and second defences, however, are substantially good.

¶7That a consideration moving to a third person is sufficient to support a written promise to pay, is conceded. All accommodation paper rests upon such consideration. In such a case, however, the consideration must pass upon the faith of such written promise. If the consideration has passed entirely prior to the promise, and the promisor becomes a mere surety on paper already delivered, his promise is not enforceable, being supported by no consideration. Pfeiffer v. Kingsland, 25 Mo. 66; Cook v. Elliott, 34 Mo. 586; Williams v. Williams, 67 Mo. 662.

¶8Applying this rule to the facts set up in the answer it will appear that it sets up a good defence. It states *127that the defendant, after the making and delivery of the note by Smith, signed the same as surety for Smith without any new consideration.

¶9If these facts are not true, the plaintiffs should have replied. Since their demurrer admits the truth of the facts pleaded, and, therefore, admits that the defendant’s signature was obtained without any new consideration, after the delivery of the note, and as an independent contract, we can not, in the face of such admission, presume that such signature was cotemporaneous with the execution of the note by Smith.

¶10It results that the action of the court was proper in sustaining the plaintiff ’ s demurrer to the third and fourth defences pleaded, but erroneous in sustaining the demurrer to the first and second defences.

¶11The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded.

All the judges concur.
/21/moapp/124 · .json · Public domain