130 P. 975 | Or. | 1913
delivered the opinion of the court.
The plaintiff bank instituted this suit in interpleader against the Standard Broom Company, which will be called for convenience the company, the Commercial State Bank, which will be called the bank, the Interstate National Bank, and W. P. Nelson, an individual. It appears that Nelson bought from the growers in Kansas enough broom corn to make a car load, which he consigned to the company upon whom he drew a sight draft
“Here is a car load of broom corn sold to us by Mr. Nelson which we will convey to you if you will pay this sight draft accompanying the bill of lading.”
The company accepted this offer, and participated in the deal as its own by paying the sight draft and taking up the bill of lading. It cannot adopt a part of the transation without adopting all of it. If, in fact, the broom corn was the property of Nelson, the company might have attached it in that form; but, having become a party to a transaction based upon the corn being the property of the bank, it is too late for it to repudiate that arrangement, and treat the proceeds of the sale of the corn as the property of Nelson.
It was argued at the trial that because the bank had a right to look to Nelson for the amount of the draft, if the same had been dishonored, the whole transaction amounted to only an agency in the bank by which it undertook to collect the draft for the account of Nelson, thus leaving it none the less the property of the latter and so subject to attachment. But the draft was not dishonored, and all who had anything to do with the matter as actors say that it was the intention to vest the title in the bank. The privilege of looking to the drawer of paper for reimbursement in case it is dishonored attaches to all commercial paper to protect and not to destroy it.
Some authorities were cited to the point that mere crediting of paper to a customer does not transfer the title to the bank. Armstrong v. Boyertown Nat. Bank, 90 Ky. 431 (14 S. W. 411: 9 L. R. A. 553) ; Midland Nat. Bank v. Brightwell, 148 Mo. 358 (49 S. W. 994: 71 Am. St. Rep. 608), and First Nat. Bank of Clarion v. Gregg, 79 Pa. 384, are such precedents, but they and other cases cited were instances where the paper had been sent for collection, illustrating the situation here as between the three banks, or else they depended on peculiar circumstances not here appearing. The decree of the circuit
Reversed : Decree Rendered.