Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1886

Robertson v. Coleman

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · Decided February 26, 1886 · Field

141 Mass. 231; 4 N.E. 619; 1886 Mass. LEXIS 175

Cases that cite this one

35 later published cases cite this decision. The 25 that cite it most often are listed here.

Tarka v. Mid-State Federal Savings (Florida Circuit Courts 1987)
Security-First Nat. Bank v. United States (9th Cir. 1939)
Polonsky v. State Street Trust Co. (Mass. Dist. Ct., App. Div. 1955)
Santa Maria v. Industrial City Bank & Banking Co. (Mass. 1950)
Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Middletown National Bank (Conn. 1939)
Uriola v. Twin Falls Bank & Trust Co. (Idaho 1923)
First National Bank of Ft. Worth, Tex. v. American Exchange National Bank (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1900)
United States v. First Nat. Bank (10th Cir. 1941)
City Bank v. Hamilton Nat. Bank (D.C. Cir. 1939)
In re Jeandros Dye & Print Works, Inc. (District Court, D. Massachusetts 1938)
Cohen v. Lincoln Savings Bank (N.Y. 1937)
Maslin v. Columbian Nat. Life Ins. Co. (District Court, S.D. New York 1932)
Ryan v. Bank of Italy National Trust & Savings Ass'n (Cal. Ct. App. 1930)
Merchants' National Bank v. Home Building & Savings Ass'n (Ark. 1929)
United States v. Chase Nat. Bank (District Court, S.D. New York 1917)
Townsend, Oldham & Co. v. Continental State Bank of Gorman (Tex. App. 1915)
Boatsman v. Stockmen's National Bank (Colo. 1914)
Goodfellow v. First National Bank (Wash. 1913)
Simpson v. Denver & Rio Grande R. (Utah 1913)
Mercantile National Bank v. Silverman (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1911)
Central National Bank v. National Metropolitan Bank (D.C. Cir. 1908)
Sherman v. Corn Exchange Bank (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York 1904)
Tolman v. American National Bank (R.I. 1901)
Meyer v. Indiana National Bank (Ind. Ct. App. 1901)
Fiore v. Ladd & Tilton (Or. 1892)

This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

Opinion of the Court

Field, J.

The name of a person is the verbal designa,tion by which he is known, but the visible presence of a person affords surer means of identifying him than his name. The defendants, for a valuable consideration, gave the check to a person who said his name was Charles Barney, and whose name they believed to be Charles Barney, and they made it payable to the order of Charles Barney, intending thereby the person to whom they gave the check. The plaintiff received this check for a valuable consideration, in good faith, from the same person, whom he believed to be Charles Barney, and who indorsed the check by that name. It appears that the defendants thought the person to whom they gave the check was Charles Barney, of Swanzey, a person in existence, but it does not appear that they thought so *233from any representations made by the person to whom they gave the check, although this, perhaps, is immaterial. It is clear from these facts, that, although the defendants may have been mistaken in the sort of man the person they dealt with was, this person was the person intended by them as the payee of the check, designated by the name he was called in the transaction, and that his indorsement of it was the indorsement of the payee of the check by that name. The contract of the defendants was to pay the amount of the check to this person or his order, and he has ordered it paid to the plaintiff. If this person obtained the check from the defendants by fraudulent representations, the plaintiff took it in good faith and for value. See Samuel v. Cheney, 135 Mass. 278; Edmunds v. Merchants’ Transportation Co. 135 Mass. 283.

Judgment on the verdict.

Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.