Blow v. White

<p>Scaling Ordinance. Confederate Currency. Bill of Exceptions. Before Judge Robenson. Jones Superior Court. October Term, 1869,</p> <p>Blow sued Ada C. White, as executrix of Joseph C. White, upon Joseph C. White’s promissory note for $4,000, made on the 5th of January, 1865, due the 1st of January, 1866, and “payable in the currency of the country when due.” There was a plea of the loss of property by the war,-under the Relief Act, but it was not insisted upon. She also pleaded that the consideration of the note was Confederate treasury notes loaned, and praye'd that plaintiff have judgment for only the specie value of the same.</p> <p>On the trial, the only evidence besides the note was as follows : It was shown that a party proposed to loan plaintiff certain Confederate money without interest, and White having applied to plaintiff to borrow some, plaintiff took it from this third party and offered to loan it to White. White agreed to take it, but when the note sued on was presented he declined sighing it and would not receive the currency. He went away, but subsequently came back to-plaintiff, said he was ready to take the currency, got it and signed said note, and also gave a separate note for interest on the sum loaned, $4,000 00. This currency, when White got ft, was of very little value, it required sixty dollars of it to buy one of specie. The charge of the Court does not appear in the record. *It is only stated that he charged the jury “substantially that they must carry out the intention of the parties to the note and find accordingly.” Their verdict was for $66 66 “in gold, or its equivalent in greenbacks.” Plaintiff’s counsel moved for a new trial, upon the grounds that said verdict was strongly against the weight of evidence and contrary to law; “because the Court omitted to charge the jury as the nature of the case required, that in arriving at the intention of the parties, they must 'be guided by the terms of the contract, and could not conjecture an intention at variance with those terms.” A new trial was refused, and that is assigned as error on said grounds.</p> <p>(The only description of the note in- the bill of exceptions- is that the “plaintiff read in evidence the note sued upon.” The defendant’s counsel here moved to dismiss the bill of exceptions upon the ground that the note was not embodied in the same by copy or other description identifying it. By reference to the record the Court saw that the suit was in the short form (“Jack Jones’ form”) and that the note was there copied literally. And upon this the motion to dismiss was overruled.)</p>