Bradford v. . Williams

Smith, C. J., after stating the above. There is no error in the ruling and it inust be sustained. The delivery of the note, with the endorsement of the payee in blank — if indeed the same result does not follow without it, it being payable to the “bearer,” with no mark upon the instrument to indicate any interest or property in the plaintiff or other person — to Martin, although for the unexpressed purpose of collection was in law an assignment of the title thereto and conveyed a general authority to dispose of it as his own. The act involves in substance a declaration to all who have no notice of the restricted agency or its trusts, that they may deal with him as rightful owner. This principle of commercial law governing the endorsement and transfer of negotiable instruments, is essential to the integrity and safety of commercial dealings, and too well understood and acted on to need citations in its support. It is illustrated in Parker v. Stallings, Phil., 590. In this case the defendant Stallings, to whom the note was executed, endorsed it to Jordan, his attorney, for collection under his advice that it was necessary to do so ; but without stating any purpose in the endorsement, and it was again bj Jordan sold and *10 endorsed to the plaintiff Parker for full value and without notice of the terms of the previous endorsement to Jordan. It was decided that not only the title passed and a right of action vested in the plaintiff, but that the responsibilities of an endorser attached to the defendant and were transferred, from which he could not escape by showing, in the words of the opinion, “the fraud practiced by Jordan upon the other endorser.” The rule seems to be, as thus declared, that the owner thus puts the note in the power of his endorsee to use and dispose of it, as his property, and is bound by his agent’s acts and transactions, within the scope of his apparent authority, in his dealings with a bona fide assignee who pays full value therefor. It is a salutarj^ rule for the maintenance of good faith and integrity in commercial transactions, which so often involve the transfer of negotiable papers. • But aside from this the jury find that the appellee took up the note with his own moneys and at the instance of the debtor, paying its full value and with no notice of an agency. This was clearly within the authority given to collect, and negatives the charge made in the complaint of a collusive transaction whereby the security wás misapplied to the individual debt of the attorney. The'reference to adjudged cases in the argument for the appellant, Weeks on Attorneys, ch. 10, § 219, and notes at foot of page 381, will be found, on examination, generally to be cases of known professional relations, and most of them where suit has been brought; and there, it is held that a power to collect does not authorize an assignment or any disposition other than by full payment. Of like import are the adjudications in this court in respect to the extent of an attorney’s powers over a claim placed with him to collect or sue on. Morris v. Grier, 76 N. C., 410 ; Moye v. Cogdell, 69 N. C., 93. One of the cases relied on in support of the appellant’s *11 contention and most favorable to his case, Goodfellow v. Landis, 36 Mo., 168, while sustaining the rule which protects the bona fide assignee of negotiable securities from an attorney, indicated upon the face of the paper as owner, subjoins the qualification that the transfer must be “limited to such persons as receive the instrument in the due course of business,” a proposition which, if accepted as correct, embraces the case before us. There are no circumstances here which were calculated to awaken suspicion or raise an inquiry as to the trusts attaching to the possession of the attorney. No cases we have examined impugn the proposition which protects an assignment made in good faith and for full value, and we concur in the ruling of the court which exonerates Williams from liability to the plaintiff. There is no error and the judgment must be affirmed. Affirmed.