White v. . Continental National Bank , 64 N.Y. 316 ( 1876 )

[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] The right of a party paying money to another under a bonafide forgetfulness or ignorance of facts, to recover it back from one who is not entitled to receive it, is well established. The equitable action for money had and received will lie against one who has received money which in conscience does not belong to him. (Kelly v. Solari, 9 M. W., 54; The Bank of Orleans v. Smith, 3 Hill, 560.)

The doctrine has been applied, repeatedly, in cases analogous to the present. (Bank of Commerce v. The Union Bank, 3 Comst., 230; The Continental National Bank v. The NationalBank of the Commonwealth, 50 N.Y., 575; National Bank ofCommerce v. National Mechanics' Banking Association, 55 id., 211; The Marine National Bank v. The National City Bank, 59 id., 67.)

That the plaintiffs in this action paid to the defendant, professing to be the holder of the bill, the face of it, in ignorance of the facts disentitling the defendant to receive the same, is not disputed. Their right to recover the money thus paid must be unquestioned, unless their right is barred by some circumstance which takes the case out of the general rule, or by some act of their own they have lost the right.

Certain general principles, applicable to commercial paper and regulating the rights and obligations of the several parties thereto, are very familiar and of every day application.

First. The plaintiffs, as drawees of the bill, were only held to a knowledge of the signature of their correspondents, the drawers; by accepting and paying the bill they only vouched for the genuineness of such signatures, and were not held to a knowledge of the want of genuineness of any other part of the instrument, or of any other names appearing thereon, or of the title of the holder. (Kelly v. Solari, supra; Broom's Legal Maxims, 257; National Park Bank v. The Ninth National Bank,46 N.Y., 77; Merchants' Bank v. State Bank, 10 Wallace, 604;Espy v. The Bank of Cincinnati, 18 id., 604; Goddard v.The Merchants' Bank, 4 Comst., 147.)

Second. The defendant, as holder of the bill and claiming to be entitled to receive the amount thereof from the drawees, was held to a knowledge of its own title and the genuineness of the indorsements, and of every part of the bill other than the signature of the drawers, within the general principle which makes every party to a promissory note or bill of exchange a guarantor of the genuineness of every preceding indorsement, and of the genuineness of the instrument. (Erwin v. Downs,15 N Y, 575; Turnbull v. Bowyer, 40 id., 456; Story on Promissory Notes, §§ 135, 379, 380, 381.) The presentation of the bill, and the demand and receipt of the money thereon, was equivalent to an indorsement. The drawees had a right to act upon the presumptive ownership of the defendant as the apparent holder.

The facts which disentitled the defendant to receive the money, and in ignorance of which it was paid, were those presumed to be within the knowledge of the defendant and not of the plaintiffs. The defendant, in receiving the money and in disposing of it, did not act upon the faith of any admission by the plaintiffs, express or implied, of any fact which they now controvert in prosecuting this action. There was, therefore, no want of good faith, no negligence, or even want of ordinary care on the part of the plaintiffs in the payment of the money. The defendant, in the entire transaction, acted upon other evidence of its right to the money than the statement or actions of the plaintiffs, and in dealing with the bill and with the money, its avails, acted upon the apparent title and genuineness of the instrument, and the responsibility of those from and through whom it received the bill. The plaintiffs, therefore, owed no duty to the defendant in respect to the forgery, which invalidated the bill and its title to the moneys represented by it.

It follows that there could be no negligence on the part of the plaintiffs which could defeat their right to reclaim the money paid whenever the forgery and the consequent mistake in the payment were discovered. Owing no duty and making no misrepresentation, there was no estoppel to bar the action. The case is distinguishable from The Continental National Bank v.The National Bank of the Commonwealth (supra), in this, that in the case cited the officer of the bank pronounced a forged certification of a check to be genuine, upon which the payee of the check relied, as he had a right to do, and thus relying neglected to take the means then in his power to retrieve his position and save himself from loss. The court held that the circumstances created an equitable estoppel, and that the bank could not thereafter gainsay the genuineness of the certification which it had adopted and upon which the other parties had acted. It will be seen that this estoppel was based upon the admission of a fact peculiarly within the knowledge of the bank upon which the check was drawn, and which it was bound to know, and upon a positive assertion upon which the other party had a right to and did rely. In this case, as we have seen, the plaintiffs made no assertion of any fact within their knowledge, and the defendant did not act or forbear to act upon the faith of any thing which the plaintiffs said or did or omitted to say or do.

Again, in the case cited, had the teller of the certifying bank disclaimed the forged certification and pronounced it a forgery when presented, the holder of the check would have had ample time to arrest the swindler at the bank of the State of New York before, as the evidence showed, he had received the money on the gold checks, and before he went to the sub-treasury with his gold certificates.

In the case at bar, it is the merest conjecture, with scarcely a possibility to support it, that the defendant, or those from whom it received the bill, could at any time after the transmission of the foreign bill of exchange to Baltimore, have taken any effectual measures either for arresting the swindler or reclaiming the bill bought and paid for upon the credit of the bill. Estoppels cannot be based upon mere conjectures, even if a proper foundation is laid for them in other respects. There is nothing really in the case to distinguish it from The NationalBank of Commerce v. The National Banking Association (supra), in which the plaintiff recovered.

Should this action be retried other questions may arise not presented by this record, growing out of the relations between the defendant and other parties, and the character in which the defendant acted, whether as agent or principal. Upon the present record the equities are with the plaintiffs. If they fail to recover, they lose the money absolutely and without legal fault on their part. If the defendant is compelled to reimburse the plaintiffs, it has its remedy over against the prior indorsers; and if they in turn have no remedy against the prior indorsers, it is because they have chosen to deal with irresponsible persons, or those of whose character and responsibility they were ignorant. It would be unjust to father the consequences of their method of dealing upon innocent third persons. But waiving the question as to the responsibility of the defendant for the genuineness of the instrument, and taking the most favorable view for the defendant, which is to regard it as the case of a mutual mistake, in respect to which neither was in fault, and in that view and upon that theory, the case is within the principles decided inThe Bank of Commerce v. The Union Bank (3 Comst., 230); TheKingston Bank v. Eltinge (40 N.Y., 391), and the plaintiffs are entitled to a new trial.

Upon the case as made and upon the exceptions taken at the trial, I am of the opinion that the judgment should be reversed, and a new trial granted.