Community State Bank v. Durbin
Community State Bank v. Durbin
Opinion on the Merits
DECISION ON MERITS
This appeal concerns the appellant and the appellee Richard D. Widup only, there being no judgment for or against the other appellees named in the assignment of errors. It involves a personal bank check held by the appellant and drawn by the appellee on the First National Bank of Wabash, Indiana, payable to the order of Durbin Farm Service in the sum of $3,250. Payment of the check was stopped upon the written order of the appellee and the appellant, as the holder thereof, brought suit to collect it. A jury denied relief and judgment went accordingly. It is undisputed that the check was issued by the appellee wholly without consideration and the only question before us is whether or not the appellant is the holder thereof in due course and therefore entitled to recover free from such defense.
On the 15th day of June, 1948, the appellee was in the market for a “tractor outfit including a disk, plow and cultivator” and early that morning went to Durbin’s home to purchase one. The outfit Durbin proposed to sell him was in Monon, Indiana, and the appellee had never seen it. Durbin however had not yet completely paid for this outfit and did not have enough money in the bank to do so. He therefore asked the appellee for the purchase price in advance
The deposit was made upon the appellant’s regular form of deposit slip which had been in use for many years and upon which there was printed the following statement: “In receiving items for deposit or collection this Bank acts only as depositor’s collecting agent and assumes no responsibility beyond the exercise of due care. All items are credited subject to final payment in cash or solvent credits. . . .” Despite the use of such deposit slips the appellant was accustomed to give a depositor’s account immediate credit for checks payable to the depositor and properly endorsed unless it had reason to doubt their validity. The appellant put the appellee’s check in the process of collection by forwarding it to its correspondent bank in Indianapolis during banking hours on the same day it was received. Sometime that evening the appellee called upon the appellant’s cashier at his home in Royal Center, Indiana, and demanded the return of his check because, as he explained, he had received nothing for it in the way of consideration. The cashier told him he did not have the check but he should not worry about it because he
The appellant contends that upon the above facts its status as a “holder in due course” of the check in suit appears as a matter of law and, as the appellee’s sole defense is want of consideration, the verdict of the jury is contrary to law. The appellee on the other hand asserts that the undisputed evidence discloses that the terms under which the appellant came into possession of the check were written and cannot be varied by parol evidence. That according to said writing the appellant accepted the check for deposit as Durbin’s collecting agent and that any credit given to his account was conditional upon final payment in cash or solvent credits. Therefore Durbin and not the appellant is the actual holder of the check in suit and his defense of want of consideration is valid.
In the case of Olinger v. Sanders (1931), 92 Ind. App. 358, 174 N. E. 513, this court had occasion to construe the legal import of a deposit slip upon which there was printed the verbatim statement involved here. In that case we quoted with approval the language of Mr. Justice Stone in Douglas v. Federal Reserve Bank (1926), 271 U. S. 489, 70 L. Ed. 1051, as follows: “While there is not entire uniformity of opinion, the weight of authority supports the view that upon the deposit of paper unrestrictedly endorsed and credit of the amount to the depositor’s account, the
What transpired at the appellant’s bank when Maud Durbin presented the check for negotiation and in what manner the transaction was handled, was established lished by the testimony of Volna E. Ritz, the appellant’s cashier, without objection. The appellee now contends that the jury was justified in disbelieving his statement that Durbin was given immediate credit for the check because the appellant’s records show the fact in respect thereto and its failure to produce them justifies the inference that they show otherwise. When secondary evidence is admitted without objection no question in respect to its competence is available on appeal nor do we know of any rule of law that warrants the discredit of such testimony solely because it is of a secondary character.
But even so, the appellee contends that it does not necessarily follow that, because the appellant is the holder of the check in suit, it is the holder thereof of in due course and that there are facts and circumstances disclosed by the evidence which warranted the jury in finding that it was not. Burns’ 1950 Replacement, § 19-402, provides as follows:
*237 “A ‘holder in due course’ is a holder who has taken the instrument under the following conditions :
“1. That the instrument is complete and regular upon its face;
“2. That he became the holder of it before it was overdue, and without notice that it had been previously dishonored, if such was the fact;
“3. That he took it in good faith and for value;
“4. That, at the time it was negotiated to him, he had no notice of any infirmity in the instrument or defect in the title of the person negotiating it.”
It is undisputed that the check in suit is complete and regular upon its face; that the appellant took it before it was overdue and at that time it had not been previously dishonored. That leaves the appellant’s status as a holder in due course dependent upon whether he took it in good faith for value and without notice of any infirmity in the instrument or defect in Durbin’s title. Burns’ 1950 Replacement, § 19-405 states:
“The title of a person who negotiates an instrument is defective within the meaning of this act when he obtained the instrument, or any signature thereto, by fraud, duress, or force and fear, or other unlawful means, or for an illegal considera-, tion, or when he negotiates it in breach of faith or under such circumstances as amount to a fraud.”
We find no evidence in the record that indicates that Durbin’s title to the check in suit was defective. It is obvious that he did not obtain it through force, fear, duress or other unlawful means and that its contemplated consideration was not illegal. Nor do we think fraud appears in the transaction as the evidence indicates nothing more than the fact that the appellee, as an accommodation to Durbin, paid in advance for
Finally the appellee seeks to justify the jury’s verdict on the theory that the evidence warrants an inference that Ritz, the appellant’s cashier, was a sort of silent partner of Durbin’s in the farm equipment business and as such aided him, through the bank, in kiting checks of which the check in suit was one and therefore the whole transaction lacks the good faith necessary to constitute the appellant a holder in due course. There is no direct evidence to that effect and we find none that would justify such an inference. We have studied this record with care
Judgment reversed and cause remanded with instructions to sustain the appellant’s motion for a new trial.
Note. — Reported in 98 N. E. 2d 604.
Opinion of the Court
ON MOTION TO CORRECT TRANSCRIPT
Appellees have filed a verified motion stating that the official shorthand reporter in transcribing her shorthand notes taken at the trial inadvertently omitted part of an answer to a question. This statement is supported by the affidavit of the reporter and the certificates of the trial judge and clerk of the court.
Appellees ask “that said omission above mentioned be inserted as a permanent part of the transcript of evidence given in this cause.”
“The application to amend a bill of exceptions can not be made in the court to which an appeal has been taken. An appellate tribunal has no power to correct the record as it is certified by the clerk of the trial court. But after the bill has been corrected by the trial court, the corrected bill may then be brought up to the court in which the appeal is pending by a writ of certiorari, and it will then supersede the erroneous record.”
See also: Wabash, etc., Cement Co. v. Evarts (1923), 79 Ind. App. 371, 135 N. E. 491, 135 N. E. 801; Morgantown Mfg. Co. v. Hicks (1909), 43 Ind. App. 32, 86 N. E. 856.
Appellees’ motion is overruled.
Note. — Reported in 95 N. E. 2d 310.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Community State Bank of Royal Center v. Durbin Et Al.
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