Published August 30, 2024
By Robert Cook
Senator from Illinois in the Congress of the United States. Young served from 1837 to 1843. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)
Quincy has had its share of important legal cases. Among the most famous are the Dr. Richard Eells case of 1843 and 1852 and the Pfanschmidt murder case of 1914. In the Eells case, the United States Supreme Court upheld the Fifth Judicial Circuit Judge Stephen A. Douglas’s conviction of abolitionist Dr. Eells, who in 1842 had tried to help a slave fleeing his Monticello, Missouri, owner. In Pfanschmidt, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the claim of Ray Pfanschmidt that he had been wrongly convicted of his sister’s murder because of errors by the lower court in Adams County. He was found not guilty when retried for his sister’s death and not guilty in a separate trial related to the murder of his father.
The oldest Quincy case the author has been able to find is John Wood v. Peter Hynes. The case involved the concept of “holder in due course.” For example, if a buyer gives a seller a check for an item, the seller endorses the check to a third party (the holder in due course), the buyer must honor the check, even if the item is defective. The buyer may have a claim against the seller, but not against the holder in due course.
Here’s an example of how it works: Mrs. Jones buys a $100 watch from a clock shop. Mrs. Jones writes a check for $100 to the shop. Later that day one of the shop suppliers stops by the clock shop. The supplier accepts in good faith the proprietor’s offer to endorse Mrs. Jones’s $100 check over to pay for some of the shop’s earlier purchases. Later, Mrs. Jones discovers the watch has stopped working. Although she may have a claim against the shop for the faulty watch, under the principle of “holder in due course” Mrs. Jones must honor the payment of the $100 check that shop proprietor endorsed over to the supplier. That’s because her complaint would be with clock shop, not the supplier, who had accepted the check in good faith.
In 1833, there were four Justices on the Illinois Supreme Court. They did not just sit on the Supreme Court in Springfield. They also rode the circuit, acting as trial judges in the four circuit courts which made up the Illinois court system. In 1829, a fifth circuit court was created comprising all of the state north and west of the Illinois River, including Adams County, Peoria County, and Jo Daviess County in the far northwest part of the state. Richard M. Young was appointed judge of the new fifth circuit and served from 1825 to 1837.
Young was born in Kentucky where he was admitted to the bar. He moved to Jonesboro, Illinois, and practiced law. He served in the Illinois House of Representatives before he was appointed a circuit court judge, originally to the third circuit. When the fifth circuit was established, he moved to Quincy where he bought a 200-acre farm and prepared to serve the new circuit. Judge Young was only assigned trial court duties, apparently because the circuit was so large, and some areas were remote from Springfield. After serving as a circuit court judge he was elected a Senator from Illinois. At his term’s end, he became a member of the Illinois Supreme Court, and in 1850 moved permanently to Washington D. C.
One of Judge Young’s first cases was Wood v. Hynes. David Wilkin “came to the town of Quincy with a quantity of goods boxed up in boxes and crates.” Wilkin sold the goods to Hynes, who gave him a promissory note dated October 18, 1831: “I promise to pay unto David Wilkin the sum of one thousand dollars.” The note was witnessed by S.W. Rogers and Willard Keyes. On November 21, 1831, Wilkin endorsed the note to John Wood in St. Louis. Wood filed suit when Hynes refused to pay.
Hynes’s attorney was J. W. Whitney. Whitney argued that Wilkin, the seller, “represented himself in the town of Quincy to be a religious man and a member of the Presbyterian Church, in consequence whereof [Hynes] believed the said Wilkin to be an honest man, who would take no advantage, and use no deception in trade.” Yet the said goods “were greatly and scandalously inferior” in quality and quantity to what they were represented to be “so that they were in nowise of value to the amount of the said note.”
Wood’s attorney was Archibald Williams, a friend of Abraham Lincoln, whom Lincoln in 1861 appointed to the first U.S. District Court in Kansas. Answering Whitney’s argument, Williams filed a demurrer, an old common law pleading basically saying “so what?” Judge Young overruled the demurrer, and a trial was held that resulted in a verdict and judgment for Hynes. Wood appealed.
The Illinois Supreme Court reversed the decision of the trial court. If there is fraud in the making or executing of the note, “the note shall be void not only between the maker and payee, but also in the hands of every subsequent holder.” That is not the case here. There is no “right to interpose such a defense where there is a mere deficiency in the quality or quantity of the article sold, as between the maker and the assignee.” “The clerk of this Court will assess the damages on the note, which is the interest, and render a judgment or the debt and damages so computed, with the costs of this Court, and the Circuit Court of Adams County.” As the “holder in due course” of Hynes’s promissory note, which Wilkins endorsed over to Wood, who had accepted the note in good faith, Wood was entitled to be paid.
Today, cases occasionally have the same issue and the “holder in due course” is adjudicated, not always with the same result.
Robert Cook is a retired member of the Illinois Appellate Court. He is a member of the historical society.
Sources:
Eells v. The People, 5 Ill.498 (1843).
Moore v. People of State of Illinois, 55 U.S. 13 (1852).
People v. Pfanschmidt, 262 Ill. 411 (1914).
John Wood v. Peter Hynes, 2 Ill. 103 (1833).
Kedzie and 103rd Currency Exchange, Inc. v. Hodge, 1456 Ill. 2d 732 (1993)
