Silberschmidt

Plaintiff, claiming to be the holder in due course of four certain negotiable certificates of deposit issued by the State Bank of Merrill, Michigan, payable to the defendant Thomas Moran, or order, each dated "February 16, 1921, and each for $1,000, brought this action to recover the face thereof, to wit: four thousand dollars, with interest, from defendants Thomas Moran and H. B. Eshleman as indorsers. The defendant Eshleman having absconded and not having been served with process, the action proceeded against the defendant-appellant Thomas Moran alone.

The defenses pleaded by the appellant were that there had been no notice of dishonor or protest; that plaintiff was not a holder in due course, and that plaintiff had become possessed of the certificates without consideration and in bad faith and through menace and duress practiced upon H. B. Eshleman, in whose hands the certificates of deposit had been placed by appellant to be used only in the purchase of certain real property in Los Angeles, and that the certificates of deposit had not been used for that purpose. The appellant asked for affirmative relief and to be adjudged the owner and entitled to the possession of the four…