Elliott v. Chesnut

Stewaiít, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The note upon which the suit below was instituted by the appellees, the holders of the note, against the appellant, the maker, was in blank as to the name of the payee; and upon the call of the case at the April term, 1863, the appellant took his first exception to the action of the Court, in permitting the appellees to fill up the blank with the names of Hall & Anderson as the payees, who were the parties that had endorsed the note to them. At the trial, November term, 1865, the appellant took his second exception to the ruling of the Court, in allowing the note, so altered at bar, to stand, and to be offered as evidence to the jury. Both exceptions may be considered and disposed of together.

It is well settled, that endorsements in blank upon a promissory note, can be filled up at any time before verdict, to carry out the intention of the parties, upon the implied authority of the endorser to that effect, according to the commercial law regulating the transfer of such papers. A bill payable to bearer, or a bill payable to order, and endorsed in blank, will pass by delivery, and bare possession is prima faeie evidence of title, and for that reason possession of such a bill will entitle the holder to sue. The Act of 1825, chapter 35, (embodied in the Code, Art. 14, sec. 8,) provides that “no judgment shall be set aside because of the endorsement being in blank, and in effect, gives to a plaintiff all the advantage from a blank endorsemant as one in full, so far as his right of action is affected. Any holder, therefore, with a blank endorsement, may now sue in his own name.” Whiteford vs. Burckmyer & Adams, 1 Gill, 146, 147 . “If the note is payable to order, the title will pass, by the endorsement of the payee to the person named in the endorsement ; if they are endorsed in blank, then the title passes by mere delivery to the holder, in the same manner as if the endorsement were to the bearer.” Story on Prom.

Notes, see. 43. ⁵⁶⁶ The holder of the note has also a very large authority to fill up the blanks in the body of the note. It is not necessary that the payee should be expressly named, if it can be fairly implied to whom the promise is made. “The name of a person signed to a blank paper, for the purpose of having a promissory note written over it, will bind the party, when the note is written by a person properly