Richard v. Connecticut Electric Manufacturing Co.

Headnote

Bills, notes and checks — action against drawer to recover on foreign bills of exchange ■ — • defense that they were given under agreement that plaintiff would look to drawee for payment —failure to protest nonpayment.

Richard v. Conn. El. Mfg. Co., 200 App. Div. 681 , affirmed.

Appeal from a judgment, entered April 25, 1922, upon an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department reversing a judgment in favor of plaintiffs entered upon a verdict directed by the court and directing a dismissal of the complaint. The amended complaint set forth in the usual form four causes of action, each for the non-payment of a draft or bill of exchange in the sum of $1,831.75, and aggregating $7,327, each payable with interest at six per cent per annum four months from the date thereof, which is May 26, 1919. A fifth cause of action was also alleged on the original or pre-existing indebtedness as evidence of and as security for which the bills of exchange were given, the complaint alleging as to this fifth cause of action that plaintiffs loaned to the defendant the same sum of $7,327 on or about May 14, 1919, which was promised to be repaid four months from said date with interest at six per cent per annum, and that the same was

not paid. The defense was that the drafts were executed and delivered to the plaintiffs by the defendant in part payment of goods sold to the drawee by plaintiffs through defendant and upon condition that the goods were to be deemed paid for and that plaintiffs would look to the drawee and not to the defendant for payment thereof. Also that the bills in question were foreign bills of exchange and that defendant at no time received any notice whatsoever of the presentment, non-acceptance, dishonor, nonpayment and protest of said drafts or bills of exchange.