Marvin L. Rose was an experienced real estate developer. One of his projects was Rosewood, a tract of land located in Illinois. To finance this project, Rose and his wife obtained two loans from Belleville National Bank for the aggregate amount of $879,000. The Roses executed promissory notes to the bank for each loan.
The Roses claimed that officers of the bank led them to believe that the two loans were five-year-term notes with fixed interest rates. Despite this, each note stipulated that it was payable "on demand or if no demand be made, due and payable five (5) years after date."
The Roses claimed that they were not aware of this language because they did not read the documents. A year and a half after the notes were executed, the bank informed the Roses that they must renew the loans, or the notes would be called.
The Roses claimed that their signatures were obtained by fraud in the inception because they thought they were signing term notes and not demand notes. Have the Roses acted ethically in alleging that the demand note should not be enforced against them because they had not read the note? Who wins?
Belleville National Bank v. Rose, 456 N.E.2d 281,Web 1983 Ill.App. Lexis 2435 (Illinois Appellate Court.)