A Treatise on the Law of Defenses in Actions on Commercial Paper; Including the Defenses at Common Law and Under the Negotiable Instruments Acts (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ... therefore very desirable that on such questions the state courts should conform to the doctrine of the federal courts. The inconvenience and confusion that would follow from having two conflicting rules on the same question in the same state, one in the federal courts and another in the state courts, is of itself almost a suflicient reason why we the indorsement was made, as that it was indorsed to him when past due, or that he is not for other reasons the bona fide holder of the note. Such evidence may be admissible in many cases in order to sub ject the note in the hands of the in dorsee to a. defense existing between the original parties. Aside from that consideration, in the absence of should adopt the doctrine of the ted-eral courts on this question. To do otherwise, so long as the jurisdic-tion ot those courts so largely de-pends on the citizenship of suitors, would really result in discrimination against our own citizens. In deter-ence, therefore, to the overwhelming weight ot authority, but without committing ourselves to all the rea-soning ot the decided cases on the subject oi'. the law of agency, we deem it best to hold that a bill of lading issued by a station or ship-ping agent ot a railroad company or other common carrier, without re-ceiving the goods named in it for transportation, imposes no liability upon the carrier, even to an inno-cent consignee or indorsee for value, and that the rule is the same whether the act of the agent was fraudulent and collusive, or merely the result of mistake. Ot course this presumption is predicated upon the assumption that the authority of the agent is limited to issuing hills of lading for freight receivable be-tore, or concurrent with the issuing oi'. the bills, which would...