Nakagawa v. Okamoto

ANGELLOTTI, J.

The four actions above specified were tried together, all involving the same questions. The defendant in each action appeals from a judgment given in favor of the plaintiff therein and from an order denying his motion for a new trial. The motions for a new trial in the four cases were heard upon a single statement, and the record on the four appeals is contained in one transcript.

The original complaints were in the usual form of a complaint on a promissory note, each alleging substantially that on or about July 22, 1909, the defendant executed and delivered to the “Japanese Farmers’ Association” his promissory note in the following words, viz.:

“Los Angeles, Cal., July 22nd, 1909.

“One day after date I promise to pay to the order of Japanese Farmers’ Association, five hundred dollars, for value received, with interest at......per cent per........from .......... until paid, both principal and interest payable only in United States gold coin, and in case suit is instituted to collect this note, or any portion thereof..........promise to pay such additional sum as the court may adjudge reasonable as attorneys’ fees, in said suit. “$500.00”;

that no part thereof has been paid; and that prior to the commencement of the action the Japanese Farmers’ Association duly transferred and sold said note to plaintiff. The answer in each case, among other things, denied the alleged

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transfer of the note to the plaintiff therein, and set up as a defense want of consideration. The trial was commenced upon these pleadings.

The evidence developed the fact that the circumstances attendant upon the execution of the notes were substantially as follows: In June, 1909, there were located in the city of Los Angeles two market houses, one known as the Third Street Market and the other as the Ninth Street Market. At that time there was a large number of Japanese farmers engaged in raising garden vegetables to be sold in the markets of said city, many of whom were members of what was called the Japanese Farmers’ Association. This body was an unincorporated association, and, so far as the record shows, had no business or purpose defined by any agreement of any kind or ■character, or any articles of association whatever, was not engaged in business of . any kind and had no property. The president testified that he could not explain “what it is.” There is absolutely nothing in the record to indicate what were the duties or powers of any of the officers thereof. Prior to June, 1909, most of the Japanese farmers so associated were doing their individual business and selling their produce at the Third Street Market. In that month they agreed among themselves that they would move to the Ninth Street Market, and discontinue doing business at the Third Street Market, and they so did. Some of them purchased stock of the corporation conducting the Ninth Street Market. After this, while these Japanese were so established at the Ninth Street Market for the sale of their produce, some of them owning stock in the corporation conducting the same, a so-called agreement in writing was signed by some eighty of them, including, according to some of the evidence, three of the defendants. It was stipulated that defendant Matsuno never signed this paper and had no knowledge thereof. The so-called agreement, as shown by an alleged reproduction thereof from the memory of the person who prepared it, entered upon the minutes of the Japanese Farmers’ Association, was as follows: