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9 Mass. 332

Tower v. Durell

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided October 15, 1812

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1812-10-15

<p>In an action against an endorser of a promissory note, evidence that the defendant has said that the maker of the note had inforrped him that payment had been duly demanded of him, is not evidence that such demand has been made.</p> <p>Where an endorser of a promissory note believes a demand to have duly made on the maker, and that notice has been duly given to himself, and, believing himself therefore liable, takes measures for his indemnity, this will not excuse the holder from proving a regular demand and notice.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1812-10-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently January 1905

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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By the Court.

¶1In this case, it has been contended, for the plaintiff, that there was sufficient evidence of a demand * on the maker of the note. But the only evidence of the fact was the confession of the defendant, not of the fact, but that the maker of the note had informed him of the fact. Now, that declaration of the maker, if it had been made in open Court at the trial of the cause, would not have been evidence of the fact. Certainly, then, it cannot be evidence, when produced in this circuitous manner.

¶2Then it was urged that the defendant had waived his claim of a demand and notice. We have decided, in Bond & Al. vs. Farnham, which was cited by the Solicitor-General, that if the maker of a promissory note, before the note becomes- due, assigns all his property to his endorser, this latter is to be considered as waiving a demand and notice. But it would be going too far, to say that an endorser, who, supposing a regular demand and notice to have been made and given, and believing hitnself chargeable, takes measures for his indemnity against his supposed liability, becomes thereby chargeable. The verdict in this case must be set aside, and a new trial granted, (a)

¶3 [Vide in note, Crosser vs. Hutchinson, ante, 205. — Ed.]

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