Martin v. Bank of the United States

WASHINGTON, Circuit Justice. I have carefully reviewed the decision of this court in the ease of Bullet v. Bank of Pennsylvania LCase No. 2,125), aided by the light shed upon the question involved in that and in the present case by the able arguments of the counsel on each side. My opinion remains unchanged, and is indeed confirmed by the two American cases cited at the bar, and particularly by the luminous argument of Judge Drayton in the case of Patton v. State Bank [supra]. The principles upon which this court decided the case of Bullet v. Bank of Pennsylvania were, that a bank, or any other promissory note, is the evidence of a debt due by the maker to the holder of it, and nothing more. It is also the highest species of evidence of such debt, and in fact the only proper evidence, if it be in the power of the owner of the note to produce it. But if it be lost or destroyed, or by fraud or accident has got into the possession of the maker, the owner does not thereby lose his debt, but the same continues to exist in all its rigour, unaffected by the accident which has deprived the owner of the means of proving it by the note itself. The debt still existing, the law, which always requires of a party that he should produce the best evidence of his right of which the nature of the thing is capable, permits him, where such better evidence is lost or destroyed, or not in his power, to give inferior evidence, by proving the contents of the lost paper; and if this be satisfactorily made out, he is entitled to recover. If the evidence be not lost, but is merely impaired by accident, or even by design, if such design be not to injure the maker or to cancel the debt, the principle of law is the same. Cutting a bank note into two parts does not discharge the bank from the debt, of which the note was but the evidence, nor does it even impair the evidence itself, if, by uniting the parts, the contents of the entire note can be made out. If one of the parts should be lost o'r destroyed, the debt would be no more affected than if the entire parts had been lost or destroyed. The evidence is impaired indeed, not by the act of cutting the note, but by the same accident which would have affected the entire note, had that been lost. In both cases, the owner must resort to secondary evidence, and is bound to prove that the note did once exist, that it is lost or destroyed, and that he is the true, bona fide owner of the debt. If one part only of the note be lost, the difficulty which the real owner of it has to encounter in proving his right to the debt is diminished. For if the entire note be lost, the owner of it at the time of the accident may not be entitled to the debt of which it was the evidence, at the time he demands payment, because the note, passing from hand to hand by bare delivery, may have been found, and have got into the possession of a bona fide holder. But against the real owner of one half of the note, there cannot possibly be an opposing right. The finder or robber of the other half part cannot assert a right to the debt, because he cannot prove that he came fairly to the possession of the evidence of it. I speak judicially, when I say that he cannot prove that fact, because he cannot do 'it without the aid of perjury, which the law does not presume, and can in no instance guard against it. If the lost half note gets fairly into the hands of a third person, he takes it with notice that there may be a better title in the possession of the other half, and consequently he looks for indemnity to the person from whom he received the half part, if it should turn out that he was not the real owner of the entire note. It is impossible, therefore, that the bank can be legally called upon to pay the note twice; and if the officers of the [887] institution suffer themselves to be imposed upon by insufficient or false evidence, by which means the bank is brought into this predicament, she must abide the loss as being occasioned by an error of judgment in the officers of the bank, or their want of due caution. The law cáimot adapt its provisions to every possible case that may occur, and it therefore proceeds from necessity upon general principles applicable to all eases. If upon any other ground than fraud, or perjury, the maker of the lost note may by possibibility be twice charged, the law will not expose him to that risk by relieving the asserted owner, of it; not because there .may be imposition in the case, or because the debt ought not to be paid; but because the proof that the claimant is the real owner of the debt .is defective; for it by no means follows, that, because the lost note did belong to him, that it may not then be the property of some other person. A court of law therefore will, in such a case, dismiss the parties from a forum which has no means of securing the maker of the note against a double charge, and leave him to one where those who ask of it equity will be compelled to do equity. The case tnen resolves itself very much into a question of jurisdiction. For it is quite clear that the real owner of the debt, the evidence of which is lost, is entitled to supply the want of the better evidence by that whieh is secondary, and this rule of evidence is the same in equity as at law. But whether the application for relief shall be in the one court, or in the other, must depend upon the particular case, and its fitness for the one jurisdiction or the other. Many difficulties were stated by the defendants’ counsel, to which the practice of cutting the notes and transmitting them by mail, exposes banking institutions in identifying the part of a note when produced for payment. That these difficulties do in a measure exist, must be admitted. But the bank knows that there can be but one owner of the note, and who that one is, must be satisfactorily proved, to entitle him to payment of it. The bank has a just right to call for such proof; and if it be truly and faithfully given, there can be no risk in paying it The possessor of the other half part of the note, as already observed, by whatever means he acquired it, can never oblige the bank to pay the money over again to him. But after all, the rule of law does not rest upon this circumstance. The maker of the note is bound to pay to the person who proves himself to be the legal owner of it; and the difficulties complained of, are not greater than those which attend most litigated questions. It may not be improper here to observe, that the decision in the ease of Bullet v. Bank of Pennsylvania [supra] did not proceed upon any usage applicable to the case. None such was stated in the case agreed, or alluded to by the court The next question is new; — no case like it was cited at the bar, nor is there any within the recollection of the court It is nevertheless within the range of some general principles of law, by the light of which I think it may be decided. The question is, whether it was competent to the bank to notify the holder's of her notes, that in case they should be voluntarily cut into parts, she would not pay them, unless all the parts should be brought together? I mean to treat the question as if the notice were brought home to the plaintiff. It is unnecessary, in this case, to decide how far parties to a contract may, by positive stipulations, change the rules of evidence applicable to that particular contract. If they may do so, it must be upon the basis of an agreement assented to by both parties. But upon what principle is it, that one party to a contract can prescribe terms to absolve himself from its obligations, without the assent of the other? I know of none. If the bank can dictate to the holders of her notes the condition stated in this notice, upon the performance of which, and not otherwise, she would pay them; she might with equal authority prescribe any other •condition, and declare in what case she would pay, and in what case she would not. The note is the evidence of an engagement by the bank to pay a certain sum of money to the bearer of it; and the general law of the land declares,, that if such note, or a part of it, should be lost, or destroyed, the debt shall nevertheless be paid, upon satisfactory proof being made of the ownership and loss. Thus sanctioned, these notes pass from hand to hand; and if the bank can nevertheless discharge herself from her obligation to pay them, unless both parts of the note be produced, or unless the note be produced entire, (and there is no difference between the two cases,) then the arbitrary declaration of the bank must be stronger than the law. This observation applies with equal force to every other species of contract, where one of the parties to it attempts to prescribe to the other the rules of' evidence by which alone he will be governed. I thought the defendants’ counsel seemed unwilling to contend, that the bank could go the length of declaring that they would not pay a lost note, or one which had been torn or defaced by accident. But if the court be correct in their opinion upon the first point, it follows, that the law as much compels the bank to pay the owner of half a note, where the other half is lost, as to pay in the two cases supposed; and if so, the right of the bank to prescribe terms in the one case, if admitted, would be equally valid in the others. There can be no difference, unless it be that in the one the notes were voluntarily cut, and in the other they were torn by accident. But the owner [888] of the debt, being also the owner of the paper which is the evidence of it, he had a legal right to cut it, and by doing so, he could not impair the obligation, unless he intended to do so. In all these cases, the note is cut with a view to the security, not to the destruction of the debt, by doubling the chances of preserving part of the evidence of it, in case the other part should be lost. The defendants do not forbid, or condemn the practice, even if it could ' for a moment be admitted that they had a right to do either. That is not the gravamen stated in the notice; it is the production of one of the parts for payment, unaccompanied by the other part. That is the case in which the bank declares she will not pay, and in which the law pronounces she shall pay. I am of opinion that judgment should be entered for the plaintiff.