Pizitz Mercantile Co. v. M. Cohen & Sons
Pizitz Mercantile Co. v. M. Cohen & Sons
Opinion of the Court
Plaintiffs, M. Cohen & Sons, brought this action on a promissory note executed by Joseph Saks and Pizitz-Saks Mercantile Company, a corporation. A plea of bankruptcy filed by Joseph Saks was not contested, and he went out of the case. It was alleged and admitted that defendant corporation had been organized under the name of Pizitz-Saks Mercantile Company, and that subsequently to the execution of the note in suit had changed its corporate name to Pizitz Mercantile Company. The defense was that defendant corporation had executed the note as surety for Joseph Saks, and not otherwise, and that such a contract was ultra vires the corporation, and in that event the parties appear to agree that defendant was not bound. See Buck Creek Lumber Co. v. Nelson, 188 Ala. 243, 66 South. 476. So then the sole question litigated between the parties was and is a question of fact, whether defendant was in fact a mere surety or executed the note in suit on an original consideration moving between the parties at the time. The consideration for which plaintiffs contend arises out of facts alleged as follows: The note in suit was given by way of novating a debt due from Saks & Co. to M. Cohen & Sons; Pizitz Mercantile Company bought a stock of goods from Saks & Co,, substantially all the property of the latter, under circumstances which rendered the transaction an assignment for the benefit of all creditors of the latter equally (Code, § 4295); that by the acceptance of the note in suit M. Cohen & Sons (appellees) sur rendered the right to have the sale declared an assignment for the benefit of themselves as well as all other creditors, or, in the alternative, to treat the sale as fraudulent and' proceed against the goods for. the satisfaction of -its debt — a consideration sufficient to support the contract in suit as an original promise on the part of the Pizitz-Saks Company, not as a maker for accommodation merely, but as principal contractor (1 Elliott oh Contracts, § 233; Henry v. Murphy, 54 Ala. 246). The evidence has had careful consideration, and we are unable to affirm that this contention raised a question for decision as one of law on undisputed facts, nor are we able to say that the evidence was so palpably in favor of the verdict that the judgment granting a new trial should he disturbed. Smith v. Tombigbee & Northern Ry. Co., 141 Ala. 332, 37 South. 389.
In the view we have been able to take of the record error cannot be predicated of the action of the court in granting a new trial. 141 Ala. 382, 37 South. 389.
Affirmed.
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