Farmers & Merchants National Bank v. Harper

Digges, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. On November 5th, 1920, in the Circuit Court for Caroline County, the plaintiff, now appellant, entered a judgment on a promissory note providing for judgment by confession against Nathaniel B. Harper and the defendant (appellee here), Agnes H. Harper. On July 9th, 1921, the appellee filed a motion to strike out the judgment as to her, alleging her signature to the note to be a forgery. After taking testimony, and argument upon the motion, the lower court ordered the judgment stricken out and the case placed on the trial docket, reserving the lien of the judgment.

The case was first removed to Cecil County, and then to Queen Anne’s County, finally coining to trial at the November term of the circuit court for that county. By the action of the court in striking out the judgment by confession against the appellee and placing the case on the trial docket, it left the declaration standing, and the next pleadings in the course of arriving at an issue between the parties were pleas on behalf of the appellee. On May 16th, 192J? the appellee filed her pleas, which were the general issue pleas, being first, that she never promised as alleged; and, second, that she never was indebted as alleged. On the 15th day of May, 1925, the plaintiff joined issue as to the defendant’s first and second pleas, being the general issue pleas. iSubsequently, on the third day of November, 1925, by leave of the court, the following supplemental pleas were filed by the defendant: “First, that she never was indebted as alleged.

Second, that she never promised as alleged. Third, that she never signed the alleged promissory note mentioned and described in the declaration, and that her alleged signature thereon is a forgery.” On November 5th, 1925, the plaintiff filed two motions: first, that the leave granted by the court to the defendant to file supplemental pleas be rescinded; and, second, that the ³⁶⁰ third supplemental plea of the defendant be not received, Each of these motions was overruled by the court, to which rulings the plaintiff duly excepted, and these constitute the only exceptions contained in the record. Subsequent to the rulings of the court on these motions and the exceptions thereto reserved by the plaintiff, the plaintiff joined issue as to the defendant’s first and second pleas, which were the general issue pleas, and replied to the defendant’s third plea of forgery by denying that the note is a forgery and by alleging that the signature thereto is the signature of the defendant Agnes H. Harper. The defendant then joined issue on the third plea.

The trial was proceeded with, and resulted in a verdict and judgment for the defendant, from which judgment this appeal is taken. The question presented by this appeal is the correctness of the lower court’s ruling in allowing the defendant to file a supplemental plea in which forgery is alleged and the signature of the appellee denied as being her genuine signature. The record discloses that this action of the court was subsequent to the filing of the general issue pleas by the defendant and a joinder of issue by the plaintiff on the general issue pleas. Article 15, section 28, sub-section 108, of the Code of 1924, provides: “Whenever the partnership of any parties, or the incorporation of any alleged corporation, or the execution of any written instrument filed in the case is alleged in the pleadings in any action or matter at law, the same shall be taken as admitted for the purpose of said action or matter, unless the same shall be denied by the next succeeding pleading of the opposite party or parties.” This section has been construed by our predecessors in a number of cases.

In the ease of Banks v. McCosker, 82 Md. 518 , Judge Roberts, after quoting sub-section 108, said: “When the note sued on was filed in this cause it had the signature of the payee endorsed thereon and was the means by which the appellees obtained title to the note, and became thereby enabled to maintain this action, the payee’s ³⁶¹ signature was then just as much a part of the instrument sued on as were the signatures of the makers thereof. If, therefore, the next succeeding pleading did not in terms deny' the signatures of the makers and of the payee, the law says, 'the same shall be taken as admitted for the purpose of said action or matter.’ We think it very clear that the legal effect and meaning of the statute is that the next succeeding pleading must in terms deny the signatures of the maker, and of the payee as well, and we do not think the general issue plea is such a denial as the law contemplates. Before the passage of the Act of 1888, ch. 248, under issue joined on the general issue plea, the plaintiff had the burden cast upon him to establish the due execution of the note sued upon. Such being the case, what possible purpose could the Legislature have had in the passage of the act in question, if not to relieve the plaintiff from the burden of proving the