State Nat. Bank v. Freedmen's Savings & Trust Co.

22 F. Cas. 1137, 2 Dill. 11

• Court: U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Missouri
• Decided: July 1, 1871
• Status: Published

Opinion

TREAT, District Judge

(charging jury). The case you are trying turns mainly on the question of negligence. The fact that defendant is a corporation is in proof. You have then the plaintiff a corporation and the defendant a corporation.

The rule of law usually is, that where a certificate of deposit is issued by a bank, and it comes back to the bank issuing it with the endorsement of the depositor through the hands of bona fide innocent parties, the endorsement being forged, the bank paying the deposit certificate must lose it; for they are presumed to know the signatures of their customers, and the bank issuing the certificate has the means of verifying the signature.

This is a different case. Here was a person who could not write. The- bank gave him the certificate and took his description. The ordinary mode, where a person signs by his mark, is to have him identified, so that a piece of paper coming back to the Keokuk bank through respectable institutions, with the depositor’s mark on the back of it witnessed by another party, the bank issuing tne certificate would have the right to suppose that the bank sending the certificate had so identified the man making his mark. The witness’s signature is proven. Mr. Brooks himself says hé signed it. The simple fact, then, that the paper comes back to the bank at Keokuk with a mark witnessed by Mr. Brooks, which means that he knew Mr. Duni-van to be the person who made that mark, is sufficient to justify the Keokuk bank in paying the draft. The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff. ‘

Judgment accordingly.