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38 Me. 35

Lowell v. Gage

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine

Decided July 1, 1854

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine · decided 1854-07-01

On Report from Nisi Prius, Rice, J., presiding. Assumpsit by the payee of a promissory note against the defendants as joint and several promisors. The note was signed by Jones, one of the defendants. On the back were the words “without demand or notice,” and the names of the other defendants below. Jones was defaulted, and the other defendants pleaded the general issue.

Decided 1854-07-01

Cutting, J.

¶1— It has been settled in Colburn v. Averill, 30 Maine, 310 that, “where a person, not the payee, writes his name in blank upon the back of a negotiable promissory note, at the time of its inception, it is to be regarded as done for the same consideration with the expressed contract, and he will be holden as an original promisor.” And, “if made without date, it is presumed to have been made at the inception of the note.”

¶2According to that decision, supported, by the numerous authorities there cited, the defendants, Sage and Baker, are jointly liable as original promisors witb Jones, unless the words “ without demand or notice,” written over their signatures, be an exception to the general and well established rule.

¶3A similar question was presented to the Supreme Court *37of New York, Luqueer v. Prosser, 1 Hill, 256, and again to the Court of Errors, 4 Hill, 420, where it was decided, that such language did not change the principle. These two cases are cited by Judge Story, and approved by being incorporated into the text in his Commentaries on the law of Promissory Notes, § 468. Defendants defaulted.

Shepley, C. J., Tenney, Rice and Appleton, J. J., concurred.
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