High v. Reed
High v. Reed
Opinion of the Court
Appellant prosecutes this appeal from a judgment adverse to her which was rendered upon a verdict returned under the directions of the court. The suit was upon a promissory note signed by appellees •and one J. M. Swaim, payable to appellant’s order. The note was dated March 21, 1911, and was for the sum of $150.00, and -was due October 21, 1911. Appellees defended upon two grounds. The first defense was that the note as signed was for the sum of $100 only, and the second defense was that the note was executed by appellees as security for Swaim and that it was without consideration as to them.
(2) Appellees insist in support of their second defense that the evidence shows that appellant had loaned her brother $150 on February 18th or 20th under an oral agreement that she should have a lien on a horse which he owned, and that on the 21st of March thereafter, for this consideration, the note in question was signed by them. Appellant admitted that she had loaned her brother $150 in February'under an oral agreement that she should have a lien on a horse owned by him, but she also says that it was agreed that the money should be repaid when the horse was sold, and that the horse was sold on the date of the note, and that after selling the horse Swaim offered to give her either the money or the note, and she accepted the note. And she says the note was signed by all the parties before it was delivered to her.
Over appellant’s objection and exception the court excluded evidence showing the sale of the horse and the payment of the money on the date the note was executed. We think the excluded evidence was competent and relevant. It tended to support appellant’s contention that a new trade was made and a new consideration furnished for the note.
In 3 R. C. L. 928, it is said: “The general rule sustained by the great weight of authority is that the undertaking of one not a party to the original transaction, who, in pursuance of some subsequent arrangement, signs as surety, guarantor, or indorser after the original contract has been fully executed and delivered, is a new and independent contract, and to be binding must be supported by a new and independent consideration from that of the original contract. But it is a well established exception to this rule that if the original contract is induced by the promise of one of the parties that he will procure the signature of the person who subsequently signs in pursuance of such agreement, no new consideration is necessary to support the latter’s undertaking.”
The syllabus of that case is: “An antecedent indebtedness is a good consideration to support a new note, as to one who signs the note as surety.” Applying this rule of law to the facts of that case, which were very similar to the facts, as appellant states them, in this case, Judge English said: “If the Johnsons thought proper to give their note to the appellees for an old debt, and appellant thought proper to sign the note as their surety, the old debt was a sufficient consideration to uphold the note against both principal and surety.” “If the John-sons had made the note and delivered it to appellees for the old debt, and afterwards they had induced appellant to sign it without consideration, it might, perhaps, have been invalid as to him.”
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