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22 Wis. 415

Blake v. Coleman

Wisconsin Supreme Court

Decided February 15, 1868

Wisconsin Supreme Court · decided 1868-02-15

Complaint on a promissory note; answer, a general denial. On the trial, the instrument was put in evidence, and was on its face a promissory note in the usual form, signed by defendant and running to plaintiff, but endorsed thereon were the following words, without' date or signature: “ The conditions of the within note are as follows: L. S. Blake or bearer is not to ask or expect payment of said note until bis, Coleman’s, old mill is sold for a fair price.” Tbis was…

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1868-02-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently March 1920

5 state decisions

201868187018801890190019101920decided

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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PaiNE, J.

¶1The court below erred in holding that the instrument on which the action was brought was not affected by the endorsement on the back, but was admissible as a mere promissory note. It may be shown by parol that the *417endorsement was on tbe note at tbe time it was signed. And that being so, it became part of it, and turned it into a mere agreement. Chitty on Bills (8th ed.), pp. 160-61; Leeds v. Lancashire, 2 Campb., 205; Hartly v. Wilkinson, 4 id., 127; Cook v. Kelsey, 19 N. Y., 415. As this condition qualified tbe note, tbe action could not be sustained without showing that it bad been fulfilled. We are inclined to think tbe legal effect of tbe endorsement is, that tbe owner of tbe old fanning mill was to sell it; and that parol evidence would be incompetent to show that it was agreed that tbe plaintiff should sell it. But for tbe reason above stated, the judgment must be reversed, and cause remanded for a new trial.

¶2By the Court. — Ordered accordingly.

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