Robinson v. Clandall

An administrator appointed, abroad, may maintain a suit here in his own name on a note payable to his intestate or hearer; especially when the question whether or not he be a hona fide holder is submitted to the jury, and there is no pretence of a set-off or other defence as against the payee.

This was an action of assumpsit, tried at the Allegany circuit in October, 1829, before the Hon. Addison Gardiner, one of the circuit judges. The plaintiffs declared as the hearers of two promissory notes for about SI97, made by the defendants, bearing date in 1826, payable to Hosea Wetherly or hearer, and proved the signatures of the defendants. The defendants proved that in 1828, Robinson, one of the plaintiffs, admitted that the payee of the note, who had resided in Pennsylvania, had died there; that himself and another person were the adr ministrators of his estate; that the payee had not left prop, erty sufficient to pay his funeral charges, except notes of about S100 or more, against the defendants, and a small note against one Wright, and that he had come from Pennsylvania into this state to collect those notes. The defendant objected to a recovery, on the ground that no assignment of the notes having been proved, and it having been shewn that the payee was the holder of them at the time of his death, neither the administrators of his estate appointed in Pennsylvania, nor any other person- had the right to maintain a suit upon them. The judge charged the jury that possession of the notes alone entitled the holders to maintain the suit, unless the jury should be of opinion that such possession was fraudulently obtained; in which case they ought to find a verdict for the defendants. The jury found for the plaintiffs. The defendants moved for a new trial.