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57 Mo. App. 288

Allen v. Dornan

Missouri Court of Appeals

Decided March 26, 1894

Missouri Court of Appeals · decided 1894-03-26

JError to the Morgan Circuit Court. — Hon. D. W. Shackleford, Judge. The trial court committed error in overruling the demurrer. The fact, that the defendant in error signed the note “after it became due” and without any “consideration whatever” was an alteration of the note and discharged plaintiffs in error from all liability thereon.

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently January 1910

3 state decisions

Relies on First National Bank v. Fricke · Haskell v. Champion · Moore v. Hutchinson

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Reversed · Decided 1894-03-26

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Smith, J.

¶1— This suit was brought on a promissory note made by the defendants and one L. M. Allen, since deceased, to W. J. Bond for $130, payable six months after date.

¶2It is alleged in the petition that the plaintiff is the son of the said L. M. Allen, deceased, and succeeded to his estate as heir; that the said Bond assigned said note to the bank of Versailles and that long after it was past due, at the request of said bank, he signed said note as evidence of his good faith and intention to pay out of assets of said decedent’s estate the portion of said note for which the said deceased was liable. The petition further alleged that plaintiff had purchased said note and was the legal holder thereof. It was also further alleged that there was in fact no consideration for the signing of said note by the plaintiff.

¶3The question is whether the petition states facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action against the defendants on the note. Do the allegations in the *291petition show a liability on the part of the defendants as makers of the note? These queries, we are constrained to think, must be answered in the negative. The law is now very well settled in this state that, where an alteration is made in a note by an interested party therein, whether material or immaterial makes no difference in the result, for in either case the maker will be discharged. Farmers’ Bank v. Meyers, 50 Mo. App. 157; Messenger v. Vaughn, 45 Mo. App. 15; Ferd Heim Brewing Co. v. Hazen, 55 Mo. App. 277; Haskell v. Champion, 30 Mo. 136; First Nat. Bank v. Frick, 75 Mo. 178; Bank v. Dunn, 62 Mo. 79; Moore v. Hutchison, 69 Mo. 429.

¶4And so it has been ruled that the signing of a name as a maker to a note is an alteration that will discharge all the original parties not consenting thereto. Lunt v. Silver, 5 Mo. App. 186; Farmers’ Bank v. Myers, supra,and authorities there cited.

¶5If all the allegations of the petition were true, which we must assume was the case, it is obvious that their legal effect was prima facie to discharge the defendants from their liability on the note.

¶6The effect of this however could have been avoided had the petition further alleged, as it did not, that the plaintiff signed the note by or with the consent of the defendants. It must therefore be ruled that the petition did not state a sufficient cause of action to support the judgment, which, accordingly, must be reversed.

All concur.
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