Maddox v. Rowe
Maddox v. Rowe
Opinion of the Court
Opinion of the Court by
Affirming.
The facts of the matter áre about these: J. B. Maddox was a merchant in the town of Centertown. Several years before the year 1911, he had a. severe attack of typhoid fever, which left him in a very bad condition of health so that he had to go to a sanatorium. While he was gone his business was run by his brother, his niece and his daughter. When he returned from the sanatorium he found his affairs in very bad condition. He had in his own name 13 shares of stock in the bank of Centertown. This stock had been purchased with the money of the wife, but she had allowed her husband to put it in his own name to give him credit. He was the president of the bank and in his efforts to extricate himself from his financial difficulties, created the debt to the bank above referred to. He transferred to his wife eight shares of the bank stock and retained five shares in his own name. But to pay her for these five shares, he and she made a note to the bank for $500, and this money was placed to her credit in the bank as a time deposit at 5 per cent. She also signed as the surety of her husband another note for $750; for money which he borrowed and used himself. She was not on any of his other paper to the bank. About January 20, 1911, a State Inspector made an examination of the bank and reported its condition to the Secretary of State, who ordered the bank cashier on January 22 not to open the bank again. Before this notice was given by the State Inspector, he had a conference with certain persons at Beaver Dam, and reports of what had taken place at this conference were circulated to the effect that the Secretary of State had determined to prosecute the officers of the bank for violation of the State banking laws. On the afternoon of January 23, there was a meeting of the stockholders of the bank at the house of the cashier. Maddox and wife yrere present; also Messrs. Heavrin and Woodward,
The proof for her shows that she was in great distress on January 23d, when the meeting of the stockholders was held; that- her husband had been in a very bad state of mind for several days, and that she was very apprehensive that he would be prosecuted, and feared that if he was prosecuted he might be sent to the penitentiary. She did not know that she was not bound to pay the note which she had signed as surety for her husband, and it is insisted that she executed the mortgage without consideration under a palpable mistake of law and under the coercion of the threats that her husband would be prosecuted. If the mortgage had been executed on January 23d, there would be more force in this; but the mortgage was not in fact executed until three days later and all the parties had had sufficient time to recover their, usual frame of min.d. The evidence shows that she was not in an abnormal condition at all when the mortgage we executed, and that she perfectly understood what she was doing. She did not execute the mortgage to secure merely the notes which she had signed as suerty for her husband; she executed it to secure all his indebtedness to the bank, and, as she expressed it, to save his honor. She understood that the Farmers Bank was being formed, and knew that it was proposing to take over the assets of the old bank. She knew that the mortgage which she and her husband had executed was one of the considerations for the new bank taking over the affairs of the old bank; and although several months elapsed before this scheme was carried into effect, she at no time claimed either to Rowe as agent of the old bank or to the officers of the proposed new bank that the mortgage which she had executed was invalid. On the contrary she stood by and allowed this arrangement to be consummated without any notice of sucha claim on her part, and
The question raised by the appeal is simply one of fact. We give some weight to the finding of the chancellor on a question of fact, and we do not disturb his finding where the evidence is conflicting and the truth doubtful. Under this rule we do not see that we can disturb the chancellor’s finding here. On the contrary we think his finding is supported by the weight of the evidence.
Judgment affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.