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32 Tex. 670

Wood v. Willis

Texas Supreme Court

Decided July 1, 1870

Texas Supreme Court · decided 1870-07-01

Eerok from Harris. Tried below before the Hon. George B. Scott. Wood, plaintiff in error, brought this suit in November, 1861, on a bill of exchange for $2,500, drawn by J. B. Morris on Mcllhenny, Willis & Brother, and by them accepted. The bill was dated April 14, 1860, and was drawn by Morris, payable to his own order eighteen months after its date. The original petition alleged the indorsement by Morris before maturity of the bill.

Decided 1870-07-01

Walker, J.

¶1A want of time for extended comment upon the law and the evidence renders it necessary that this case shall be decided in few words.

¶2The charge of the court was erroneous. The want of con*679sent on the part of Wood to the payment of the bill, in any manner and for any reason that the law gave Mm the right to except, rendered the payment void for want of Ms concurrence in it. The question of duress aside, the law gave Mm a perfect right to object to the payment of his debt in unlawful money, made and circulated in aid of the rebellion.

¶3Such appears to have been the admitted fact, and the court should have so charged the jury.

¶4The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded.

Morrill, C. J.

¶5In order that my opinion in this and kindred questions may not be misunderstood, I consider that in all cases where objections were made to receiving payment of a debt in Confederate money during the war, and these objections were made known to the debtor, who however availed himself of the military orders then in force, and thus required the creditor to accept unwillingly such payment, that such pretended payment was null.

¶6Reversed and remanded.

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