Mt. Morris Bank v. Lawson

In an action on a negotiable promissory note against the maker, the plaintiff was a bona fide holder for the value; but the evidence sufficed to show that after execution, and before transfer to the plaintiff, the note had been fraudulently altered by an intermediate indorsee, in the unauthorized interpolation of the words “ with interest.” The court directed a verdict for the plaintiff. On appeal the general term of the court below deducted interest from the recovery, and affirmed the judgment as thus modified ; and this without proof of an assignment of the original consideration of the note to the plaintiff.

In contesting the correctness of the ruling in the direction of a verdict, the defeated party is entitled to the benefit of every fact in his favor which the jury were authorized to infer from the evidence. We are to assume, therefore, that the note was fraudulently altered by an indorsee in a material respect, without the consent and to the prejudice of defendant, the maker. Upon what principle, then, is it possible for the judgment to stand ? The ground upon which such an alteration is held to discharge the maker is that the identity of the note is destroyed, and the promise attempted to be enforced not his obligation. Gardner v. Walsh, 5 El. & Bl. 83. The reason of the rule, therefore, involves the corollary that an unjustifiable alteration of a contract, avoids it, even though the modification be in ease of the obligor. Gardner v. Walsh, supra; Sanderson v. Symonds, 1 Brod. & B. 426; Brown v. Straw, 6 Neb. 537 ; Bowers v. Briggs, 20 Ind. 139 ; McVean v. Scott, 46 Barb. 379 . Another obvious and inevitable consequence is that, since the altered note is not the promise of the defendant, it cannot be enforced against him even by a bona fide holder for value. One may not be bound by a contract which he neither made himself, nor authorized auothér to make for him.' The plaintiff is not holder of the note made by the defendant, but of another and different note. That the defendant is not responsible on the note ,to the plaintiff, besides being a necessary deduction of reason, is ¡settled by adjudication. Benedicl v. Cowden, 49 N. Y. 396 ; McGrath v. Clark, 56 N. Y. 34 ; Nazro v. Fuller, 24 Wend. 374 ; Conable v. Smith, 61 Hun, 185 ; 40 St. Rep. 577 ; and cases collected in note to Woodward v. Bank, 10 Am. Dec. 267 . Indeed, the point has been expressly ruled by the court which now decides otherwise. Flannagan v. Nat. Union Bank, 18 St. Rep. 826 ; 2 N. Y. Supp. 488 . The authorities adduced by the court below are altogether foreign to the question in dispute.

All concur.