Bank of Palo Alto v. Pacific Postal Tel. Cable Co.

103 F. 841, 1900 U.S. App. LEXIS 4699
U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Northern California·Decided July 11, 1900·No. No. 12,760·Published·Cited by 5 cases

Opinion

MORROW, Circuit Judge.

This is an action at law brought by a California corporation, as plaintiff, to recover from a Yew York corporation, as defendant, (1) a sum of money paid out hy the plaintiff upon a fraudulent telegraphic orden* sent over the defendant’s wires hy an employé of the defendant; (2) the amount expended hy the plaintiff in counsel fees and sundry expenses incurred in the endeavor to recover the money; and (3) to obtain punitive damages. The suit was first brought in the superior court of the state of California for the county of Santa Clara. Thereafter the cause was removed to this court upon the petition of the defendant,stating the diverse citizenship of the parties and the jurisdictional amount in controversy. The suit was (he outgrowth, as disclosed hy (he pleadings and proofs, of the following circumstances: On December 27, 3898, the plaintiff was carrying on a hanking business in the town of Palo Alto, in (his state; and the defendant was conducting the business of a telegraph company in California,with offices at Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Palo Alto, and other cities and towns. At about noon of the day mentioned, a telegram was received hy the plaintiff, through the agent: of the defendant at Palo Alto, dated at Los Angeles, Cal., December 27° 1898, [842] and reading: “To Bank of Palo Alto: Please pay Harry L. Oator eight hundred and forty dollars. Waive identification. We remit today. Farmers’ and Merchants’ Bank.” Several times during the morning a man giving the name of Harry L. Cator had called at the bank and asked if a telegraphic order in his favor had been received; and he had at one time exhibited to the cashier of the defendant bank a telegram, written upon one of the ordinary blanks of the defendant, and in the handwriting of the agent of the defendant at Palo Alto, dated at Los Angeles, Cal., December 27, 1898, in these words: “To Harry L. Cator: Money sent through bank to-day. J. H. Fisher.” A few minutes after the receipt by the defendant of the aforesaid telegraphic order, the man representing himself as Cator called at the bank, and was, without further identification, paid the amount specified in the telegram. The evidence shows that Cator, after receiving the $840, went at once to San Francisco, and there acted in such a manner as to attract the attention of the police department, with the result that he was arrested that evening. On the following day his arrest was reported to the plaintiff. The plaintiff then made inquiry of the Farmers’ & Merchants’ Bank of Los Angeles, and learned that the telegraphic order on which the money had been paid was forged. It then instructed its attorney in San Francisco to take such steps as were necessary to recover the money, if it could be recovered. Tbe attorney, acting with the police department, gave considerable attention to the matter, with the result that a confession was obtained from Cator that the money had been fraudulently secured by him, through a conspiracy between himself and one Minkler, a telegraph operator in the employ of the defendant at 'San Francisco. Cator then made an assignment of the amount still in his possession, some $788, to the plaintiff. This assignment and the $788 were left in the hands of the chief of police of San Francisco for some five or six months, pending a settlement between the parties. In June, 1899, by. agreement, the amount was turned over to the plaintiff. Various other services were rendered by the plaintiff’s said attorney in the endeavor to recover the entire $840, for all of which services he was paid by the plaintiff the sum of $250. Plaintiff now seeks to recover the entire sum of $840 paid out upon the fraudulent telegram, with interest; the sum of $250, counsel fees, as aforesaid; and the further sum of $28.84, alleged to have been expended in the pursuit of said money; also, $1,000 by way of punitive damages, — aggregating $2,118.34.

The first question to be determined is whether, under the facts of the case, the telegraph company is responsible for the wrongful act of its employé in sending the false telegram. It appears that the defendant was holding itself out to the public as a telegraph company, and that the plaintiff bank had dealt with it in that capacity; that a part of its transactions with the defendant consisted in the paying out by the bank of money upon telegraphic orders received through the agent of the defendant at Palo Alto. In the San Francisco office of the defendant one Minkler was employed as an operator, and, among his duties, he was authorized to transmit the telegraphic money orders to operators employed by the defendant in other towns, including the one at'Palo Alto; these operators having no knowledge of the origin [843] of the telegrams, other than that received from the operators In the San Francisco office. To the mind of Minkler, an opportunity was thus presented for fraudulently obtaining money. He concocted the message with which this suit is concerned, in simulation of those often passing through his hands, and transmitted it to the operator at Falo Alto as a genuine telegram from the Farmers’ & Merchants’ Bank of Los Angeles. There-was nothing in the message or in the manner of its transmission to indicate to the operator there that it was not genuine, and it was therefore delivered to the plaintiff in the customary manner. Minkler’s accomplice, a- man representing himself as the payee mentioned in the telegram, presented himself at the bank to receive the money, exhibiting to the bank officials another telegram, purporting to come from Los Angeles over the defendant’s wires, saying that the money had been sent that day. Although the telegraphic order particularly waived identification of the payee, the cashier of the bank took the precaution to make inquiries of the telegraph operator at Palo Alto as to whether the telegram was all right, and received a reply in the affirmative. He then paid the money to the supposed payee mentioned in the telegram. Plaintiff contends that the defendant is responsible for these acts of Minkler, under the law as contained in section 2338 of the Civil 'Code of California. This section provides that:

“■Unless required by or under tlie authority of law to employ that particular agent, a principal is responsible to third persons for the negligence of his agent in the transaction of tlie business of the agency, including wrongful acts committed by such agent in and as a part of tlie transaction of such business.”

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Bank of Palo Alto v. Pacific Postal Tel. Cable Co., 103 F. 841, 1900 U.S. App. LEXIS 4699 (circtndca 1900).

103 F. 841 (Bank of Palo Alto v. Pacific Postal Tel. Cable Co.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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