Holt v. First State Bank of Miami

74 S.W.2d 1050
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedSeptember 17, 1934
DocketNo. 4262.
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 74 S.W.2d 1050 (Holt v. First State Bank of Miami) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Holt v. First State Bank of Miami, 74 S.W.2d 1050 (Tex. Ct. App. 1934).

Opinion

MARTIN, Justice.

A former appeal of this case is reported in (Tex. Civ. App.) 32 S.W.(2d) 386. For convenience we briefly restate its essential facts: On August 28, 1928, James Cook negotiated a check for $802.78, drawn by appellant on a bank at Wheeler, Tex., to appellee bank. He received credit for the amount of the cheek, less $91.95, the amount of a note due by Cook’s son to appellee bank, which it was agreed! might be paid from the amount of said cheek and the son’s said indebtedness to said bank discharged. A deposit slip was issued by appellee bank to said Cook for the amount of the deposit so made, containing, in part, the following notation printed thereon: “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. * * * This bank or its correspondents may send items, directly or indirectly, to any bank including the pay- or, and accept its draft or credit as conditional payment in lieu of cash; it may charge back any item at any time before final payment, whether returned or not, also any item drawn on this bank not good at close of business on day deposited.”

On said last-named date credit for $710.85 was given Cook on the books of appellee bank, and said note for $91.95 surrendered. That within the next two days Cook checked out all of said deposit of $710.85. That the said check was forwarded to the bank at Wheeler through regular banking channels and was returned some days later unpaid; payment being refused for the alleged reason that the account of appellant with said Wheeler bank had been garnisheed by one J. B. Williams. The receipt of the unpaid check was the first notice appellee bank had of said garnishment and was subsequent to all the matters hereinbefore stated. The case was submitted upon the following special issue: “Question No. 1: Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence in this case that the plaintiff, The First State Bank of Miami, on or about the 27th day of August, 1928, took the $802.78 cheek in question for a fixed price in money or its equivalent? Answer yes or no.” To which question the jury answered as follows: “Answer to question No. 1: Yes. P. T. Boston, Iforeman.”

Judgment was entered for appellee.

Under our view of the record many questions pass out of the case, because a judgment for the appellee was the only proper one that could have been rendered in this *1051 ease. The pleading and evidence in our opinion conclusively show that the appellee hank paid value for the cheek in question in the usual course of business, and under circumstances that cast no suspicion upon the fairness of its intent. There was no evidence of notice to appellee of any infirmity in the check prior to the time it surrendered the note of Cook’s son and paid to Cook the entire balance of the' deposit given him at the time of the negotiation of the check in question. Under the authorities we think unquestionably appellee was entitled to judgment, unless the notation on the deposit slip, quoted above, was' sufficient to raise an issue of the purchase by appellee of the check in question. 6 Tex. Jur. p. 996; Prouty v. Musquiz, 94 Tex. 87, 58 S. W. 721, 998; Shaw v. San Jacinto Realty Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 16 S.W.(2d) 341. The question is narrowed, we think, to a consideration of the effect to be given the printed notation on the deposit slip, which it is claimed raised a jury question as to the ownership of the check by appellee bank. The further ancillary proposition is necessarily involved as to whether the above facts show payment of value for the instrument sued on. The question was exhaustively considered by the Virginia Supreme Court in the case of McAuley v. Morris Plan Bank of Va., 155 Va. 777, 156 S. E. 418, 424, and from it we quote:

“In Bank of Gulfport v. Smith (1923) 132 Miss. 63, 95 So. 785, a check indorsed in blank was deposited with a deposit slip reading thus: ‘Items not payable in Gulfport are taken at depositor’s risk and credited subject to actual final payment. This bank as agent for depositor will forward such items, either direct to' drawee, or another bank in the same city, or indirectly through corres-pendents in other cities.’ The cheek was drawn on an out-of-town bank, and the depositor payee ‘had practically no money’ on deposit in the bank. On the same day the bank permitted the depositor to withdraw the entire amount of its deposit. There was no specific agreement entered into between the bank and the depositor either at the time of the deposit or at the time of the withdrawal. Upon presentation for payment, the check was dishonored, and the Gulfport bank sued the drawer. The plaintiff had no notice of any infirmity or defect in the cheek, and the court said this: ‘In this case under the deposit slip the bank originally received the cheek for collection under the terms as therein stated. By the issuance of this slip it did not become a holder for value. Subsequent thereto that same day, however, it permitted this exact amount to be withdrawn by the auto company. By this act it waived (he right to hold the check only for collection and become a holder for value of the check.’ * * *
“In Old National Bank v. Gibson (1919) 105 Wash. 578, 179 P. 117, 6 A. L. R. 247, the payee of a check deposited it to his account in the Old National Bank. The deposit slip on which he listed the check had this: ‘Items other than cash are received on deposit with the express understanding that they are taken for collection only.’ Credit for .the amount was entered on the depositor’s account, and he on the same day checked out his entire balance, including the credit arising from the deposit of the check in question. Payment was stopped by the maker, and; the bank sued the maker. ⅜ ⅜ * ‘No rights are based upon the original-deposit of the cheek for collection, but the contention is that the depositor, White, having been paid the full amount of his balance in reliance upon the check now in suit, then on deposit with it, the relationship of principal and agent, which had theretofore existed between the depositor White and the appellant bank, was terminated, and that it did, upon making such payment, cease to hold the check for collection, and became a holder in due course under the statute. The question then to be determined is whether, having originally received the check as agent for collection, the bank by honoring White’s checks to an amount which entirely exhausted his balance, including the deposited cheek, thereby became a holder for value. * • * *
“ ‘But if the bank did not waive its right or privilege to charge the check back to the depositor upon its dishonor, and yet advanced its money upon the credit of the check so deposited, there is ample authority to support! the view that, by making such advances on the credit of the deposited cheek, it thereby became a holder in due course to the extent of such advances, notwithstanding that it may still have claimed the right to charge the check back to its depositor, if it saw fit. ⅝ ⅜ *

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