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62 Ga. 39

Taylor v. Scott

Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided August 15, 1878

Supreme Court of Georgia · decided 1878-08-15

<p>1. Certain promissory notes setting ont crop liens, being made in 1874 two of the makers being sureties for the third, though not so appearing on the face of the writings, and the fact of the surety-ship being known to the creditor, and one of the sureties having signed on the faith of the creditor’s promise that he (the creditor) would apply the principal’s crop of that year to these particular notes, and said surety having communicated such promise to the other before the latter signed, and both having thus signed on the faith of the promise, the creditor was bound to make the application accordingly, and his failure to do so discharged the sureties, the crop being of sufficient value to pay all the notes.</p> <p>2. It was no excuse for the creditor that a partnership of which he was a member took, afterwards, crop liens upon the same crop of the principal, for advances made to produce the crop, and that under these liens the crop was delivered by the principal to the partnership, and that the creditor, as an individual, did not in fact receive the crop, and consequently had no power to appropriate it to Ms individual claims. As a partner, lie should not have entered into obligations conflicting with his prior undertaking as an individual.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1878-08-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently January 1977

4 state decisions

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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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Bleckley, Justice.

¶11. Where the evidence is in salient-conflict, as in this case, we must look to the verdict to see which side gave the true version of the transaction. Taking the facts as the evidence for the defendants presents them, the sureties both signed on the faith of the creditor’s promise, made to one of them and by him communicated to the other, that he, the creditor, *42would apply the principal debtor’s crop of the current year to these particular notes. As between the sureties and the creditor this promise was a part of the consideration of the contract of suretyship. 30 Ga., 93, 306. Moreover, each of the notes, by its terms, was a crop lien upon the whole of said crop; and these notes were the first, and therefore the highest, incumbrance which the record discloses to which the crop was subject. The very face of the papers which the sureties signed appropriated the crop to these obligations, and it was not in the creditor’s power to change that appropriation without the consent of the sureties. 52 Ga., 380. See also 51 Ga., 205. The crop was of sufficient value to pay all the notes, and the principal debtor delivered it to a partnership of which the creditor was a member. The partnership appropriated it to prior liens of like kind in their favor, except a small surplus which, through them, reached this creditor and was applied on these notes. In our opinion the sureties were discharged.

¶22. It seems to us that the creditor cannot put off the sureties with the excuse, that the prior liens were not taken by him, but by the partnership for advances which the partnership furnished to produce the crop, and that delivery of the crop was not made to him but to the partnership. He had stipulated with the sureties that the crop should go to their protection; and as a partner he should not have entered into an ari’angement with the debtor which conflicted with his prior obligation, as an individual, to the sureties.

¶3Judgment affirmed.

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