United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Union Bank v. Hyde, 19 U.S. 6 Wheat. 572 572 (1821)

Union Bank v. Hyde

19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 572

Syllabus

A protest of an inland bill or promissory note is not necessary, nor is it evidence of the facts stated in it.

A protest belongs altogether to foreign mercantile transactions, upon which it is an indispensable incident to making a drawer of a bill or endorser of a note liable. On foreign bills it is the evidence of demand and an indispensable step toward the legal notice of nonpayment in consequence of which the undertaking of the drawer or endorser becomes absolute. Hence of foreign transactions it is justly predicated of a protest that it has a legal or binding effect.

The following undertaking of the endorser of a promissory note,

"I do request that hereafter any note that may fall due in the Union Bank in which I am or may be endorser shall not be protested, as I will consider myself bound in the same manner as if the said notes had been or should be legally protested,"

held to be ambiguous as to whether it amounted to a waiver of demand and notice, and parol proof admitted to show that it was the understanding of the parties that the demand and notice required by law to charge the endorser, should be dispensed with.