Section 57. "a Holder in Due Course Holds the Instrument Free From Any

defect of title of prior parties, and free from defences available to prior parties among themselves, and may enforce payment of the instrument for the full amount thereof against all parties liable thereon."

It is clear, then, that by this section, the Act means that the holder in due course takes free of personal defences, although he does not take free of absolute defences. It simply remains for us to consider briefly what is meant by a personal defence and what is meant by an absolute defence. We have already illustrated this in one of our cases where the note was a present. In this case, there was no consideration for the note. The boy to whom it was given could not recover, whereas when he transferred it to an innocent third party, a holder for value, he could recover. Thus we say, failure of consideration is a personal defence. Again, some person steals my check book, fills out a check, and forges my name. The check is then taken and finally gets into the hands of a person who is strictly a holder in due course. He could not recover on it, however, because forgery is a real defence. That is, no one can hold me liable on my forged check. The ordinary illustration of real or absolute defences are infancy, lunacy, illegality and sometimes fraud. Other defences are generally personal defences and do not affect the holder in due course. To put it another way, a real defence is good against the whole world; a personal defence is available only against such as are not holders in due course.

LIABILITY OF PARTIES.--The parties primarily liable on negotiable documents are, on a note, the maker; on a bill of exchange, the acceptor; and on a check, the drawer. The liability of these three parties is most concisely stated in Sections 60, 61, 62, as follows: