President of the Strafford Bank v. Crosby
President of the Strafford Bank v. Crosby
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court at the ensuing June term in Penobscot.
The cases cited by the counsel for the plaintiffsbew rhost clearly that persons transacting business at a bank are presumed to be acquainted with its usages, and assenting to them, and are consequently bound by them, even when those usages are deviations from the course established by legal principles. For this season such persons, when making contracts with a bank; are considered as doing it with reference to such usages ; indeed, they are, in legal contemplation, a part of the contract. On this ground it is contended that the present action is maintainable. The plaintiff does not rely on merely presumed knowledge, on the part of the defendant, of the nature of the usages of the bank ; it appears he had express knowledge, from his having been for several years a director, and for almost two years president, ending in April, 1821, about which time ho removed to the county of Penobscot, in Maine. The usage in question is particularly stated by the cashier; According to this, the course of the bank was to extend credit to the principal debtor on his payment of interest in advance for the usual term, without a renewal of the note or consulting the sureties; and it was understood that the note was to lie in the bank during the time for which interest was paid; but the principal or sureties had liberty to take up the note in the mean time if they chose so to do. The note on which the present action is founded, it is true, was not given till 1825, about four years after the defendant removed from Dover; but it was given in payment of another note for the same sum, taken up, and which had been given in May, 1821 ; which, of course, must have been in the bank in the interim, and the interest thereon must have been paid. In the note of 1821, Crosby and Chandler
Reference
- Full Case Name
- The President &c. of the Strafford bank v. Crosby
- Status
- Published