Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/792

756 756 HARVARD LAW REVIEW holder's act of presentment for acceptance. Apart from the well- established exception of instruments payable after some one's death, which is perhaps commercially justifiable because of the prevalence of life-estates which are anticipated by borrowing, maturity cannot properly be fixed by an extrinsic event, which is not closely connected with the collection of the instrument. In other words, business men should not be affected by facts which are not on the instrument or part of the business methods of col- lection and payment. Now, the effect of the ordinary acceleration provision is to com- bine these two classes of paper in one instrument. A note payable on or before July i is Hke Class (a) in having a definite maturity, and like Class (b) in having a movable time of payment fixed by the maker's tender or the holder's demand. My contention is that the law merchant recognizes only the two methods of satisfying the formal requisite of certainty of time. An instrument may use either or both of these two methods of stating its maturity, but it cannot regulate its maturity by some outside event. An acceleration provision is analogous to a demand note. The business world allows paper with a movable time of payment, but it cannot bother with it unless the time is eventually fixed by a business fact. This appHes just as much to paper with an ultimate definite maturity and an acceleration provision, as to paper with no stated date for payment at all and maturing at an uncertain time. Consequently, I would state my first principle as to acceleration provisions thus: I. An instrument with an acceleration provision in order to be negotiable must conform to the following requirement. The ultimate time of payment must he obvious from the bare inspection of the instru- ment; and payment can be accelerated only by the performance of an act regularly incident to the collection of the paper ^"^ To this I would add two other principles, leaving the argimient in their support till later: when it is written. For purposes of charging secondary parties and letting in equities, it matures after a reasonable time. Thus it might be said that the maturity of a de- mand note is in fact certain from the outset, being either its issue or the end of a reason- able time. From this point of view, no act is necessary to fix maturity. ^ This combines Ames' alternative requirements in one. 2 Ames, Cases on Bills AND Notes, 831.