Marcus v. People's National Bank
Marcus v. People's National Bank
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
There is no uncertainty in regard to the relation of a bank to its depositor with reference to the payment of the checks of the latter. The implied agreement of the bank is to pay such checks to the persons therein appointed to be paid. If payable to order payment must be made to the payee or to such other person as is the holder by a genuine indorsement. Where payment from a depositor’s account is made on a check containing a forged indorsement the bank remains liable to the depositor unless the party against whom it is sought to enforce such payment is precluded from setting up the forgery or want of authority. This rule is embodied in the Notes and Bills Act of 1901. No specification is made either in the decisions of the Supreme Court or in the statute of the acts which will estop the party owning the fund from setting up a forgery, but it has been well declared that where the loss is the result of the drawer’s own fault or neglect he has no standing to complain of the action of the bank in paying the check. It was said in Iron City National Bank v. Fort Pitt National Bank, 159 Pa. 46, that “it is always a good defense that.the loss complained of is the result of the complainant’s own fault or neglect and it would require a statute in very explicit terms to do away with so universal a principle of law founded on so incontestable a principle of justice.” A duty rests on a depositor not to subject the bank to extraordinary risks with regard to the payment of his checks, such as intrusting a check to one who he has reason to suppose will make a fraudulent use of it, or in so carelessly filling up a check that it may easily be altered; and in Land, Title and Trust Co. v. Northwestern National Bank, 196 Pa. 230, the issuing of a check to a fictitious person was included in the class of acts which deprived the
The judgment is affirmed.
Reference
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- 5 cases
- Status
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- Syllabus
- Banks and banking — Check drawn to nonexisting person — Fraud— Two innocent persons rule. 1. A depositor cannot recover from a bank the amount of a check paid out of his account where it appears that the depositor was fraudulently induced to draw a check to a nonexisting person to pay for a mortgage, and that the person who perpetrated the fraud took the check, indorsed upon it the name of the fictitious person, and secured payment of the cheek in this way to himself. 2. Such a case is one for the application of the rule that as between two innocent parties, he who by his acting makes loss possible, must bear it.