Tousley

The defendants signed a note payable to plaintiff, and in this action, which was brought for its collection, they set up the defense that they are only accommodation makers and that no consideration passed in the transaction. The trial court granted a motion for judgment on the pleadings and defendants appeal.

Appmlants cite section 3109 of the Civil Code: “Absence or failure of consideration is a matter of defense against any person not a holder in due course ...” Respondent replies by citing section 3110 of the Civil Code: “An accommodation party is one who has signed the instrument as maker, drawer, acceptor or indorser, without receiving value therefor, and for the purpose of lending his name to some other person. Such a person is liable on the instrument to a holder far value, notwithstanding such holder at the time of taking the instrument knew him to be only an accommodation party.” (Italics ours.)

Admitting for the sake of argument only that there is an inconsistency on the face of these two sections of our code, there is no inconsistency as a matter of law. No principle of our rules of construction is better grounded than that a section of the code referring…