178 Mo. App. 347 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1914
This is a suit^brought against the defendant bank on a cashier’s che^ for $500 issued by defendant, payable to J. B. McGinn and Company and by it endorsed to the plaintiff. The defendant bank filed an answer and bill of interpleader setting up certain facts and praying that plaintiff and one Charles W. Hartung, be required to interplead for the amount due on said cheek. Plaintiff, claiming that interpleader would not lie, moved for judgment on the pleadings. The court sustained this motion and rendered judgment for plaintiff, and defendant has appealed.
On January 24, 1912, J. B. McGinn endorsed and •delivered to the defendant bank a certified check for $1985.98 drawn by Wolcott, Beers and Grant on tne First National Bank of Kansas City in favor of said J. B. McGinn. Defendant thereupon paid McGinn $485.98 in cash, and, as to the remaining $1500, at McGinn’s request, it issued to him three cashier’s checks for $500 each payable to the order of J. B. McGinn & Company. Two of said checks were duly paid. The third is the basis of the present suit brought by plaintiff who claims to hold said check as endorsee of J. B. McGinn. The defendant further set up that one Charles W. Hartung claims that the certified check for $1985.98 above referred to was the proceeds of mules owned by him and sold by McGinn to Wolcott, Beers & Grant, and that said certified check belonged to and was the property of said Hartung; that the $485.98 and the three cashier’s checks for $500' each issued by defendant, one of which is the check in suit, were the proceeds of said certified check, and all were the property of said Hartung and were received by said McGinn in trust for his benefit, and said McGinn had no right or authority to endorse- or transfer the same; that L. P. McGinn is the wife of said J. B. Mc-Ginn and that the endorsement to her of said check was made by J. B. McGinn as J. B. McGinn & Co., without consideration, and defendant further set up that said Hartung has notified defendant that he is the owner of the cashier’s check on which this suit is brought, and that he will hold defendant for the amount thereof; that said Hartung further claims and has notified defendant not to pay the money called for in said check to J. B. McGinn nor to L. P. McGinn, that she is not the owner thereof and paid no consideration therefor.
Defendant further set up that it did not know whether said claims were true or not, nor whether Har
The sole question for our determination is, should defendant’s prayer for an interpleader be granted? The plaintiff insists that interpleader will not lie for two reasons: 1. Because there is no privity or relation existing between TIartung and plaintiff in their opposing claims to the property. 2. Because the bank by issuing the cashier’s check to J. B. Mc-Ginn has incurred an independent personal liability to. one of the claimants.
The right to the equitable remedy of interpleader depends, according to early equity jurisprudence at least, upon four essential elements. As applied to this case they may be stated thus: 1. The same thing, debt or duty must be claimed by both parties who are asked to be made to interplead. 2. Their adverse claims must be dependent or derived from a common source. 3. The defendant (who is asking the inter-pleader here) must not claim any interest in the subject-matter. 4. The defendant must have incurred no independent liability to either of the claimants. These four essential elements are laid down by Mr. Pomeroy in his Equity Jurisprudence Vol. 4 (3 Ed. j, Sec. 1322, and by many decisions.
Of the above named essential elements, the first, third and fourth are inherent in the nature of the remedy and are necessary to its proper application and use. The second, which requires that there be privity of estate, title, or contract between the claimants, or that their claims must be derived from a common
It is not necessary, however, for us to say whether the rule as to privity has been relaxed, nor are we required to base our action in this case upon any relaxation of the rule. It will be noticed that even in the statements of the law upholding .the rule in all its strictness, it is only in cases where there is “no privity” between the claimants, and that only when the title one asserts is “wholly paramount” to, and “independent” of the other, that the remedy is denied.
It would seem that the bank is- in the situaRon here indicated. It was J. B. McGinn’s duty, according to the pleadings, to deliver the cashier’s checks to Hartung. Instead of doing so, he wrongfully endorsed the one in suit to Mrs. McGinn without consideration. The bank is notified of this and is threatened with suit if it pays the check to the McGinns. The bank, therefore, stands ready to pay the check but does not know to whom it belongs or at least to whom the money represented by it belongs. It has done nothing wrongful. Must it be compelled to decide the controversy on its own responsibility and at its own risk? We think not. Suppose, for example, that the bank should receive money from a train robber who had stolen it, and, unaware that the money belonged to the persons or company robbed, the bank should issue cashier checks to the robber for the amount, and these checks
Under the circumstances of the case at bar, there is sufficient relation, privity, or common source of title, whatever you may choose to call it, between the two claimants to entitle the bank to ask an inter-pleader. At least the titles of the two claimants to the fund are not so wholly independent and distinct as to prevent the exercise of the equitable remedy of interpleader. Both claim title from the same source. Mrs. McGinn from her husband, J. B. McGinn, by endorsement and Hartung from J. B. McGinn as his agent and the duty the agent owes to pay over his principal’s money. Mrs. McGinn may have the naked legal title to the check by reason of the wrongful endorsement, but Hartung is the owner of the equitable title and as Mrs. McGinn is not an innocent holder for value, according to the pleadings, the equitable title is superior to her title and both claim through the action of J. B. McGinn — Which claimant is right? Ought the bank be made to bear the responsibility of deciding?
It cannot be said that the issuance of the cashier’s check was the creation of such an independent liability to one of the claimants as will defeat the right to an interpleader. The bank did not agree to pay the check at all events, but only on the implied understanding that it would do so to the one lawfully entitled thereto. The money in the bank represented by the check is claimed by Hartung as his property. The issuance of the cashier’s check did not change the title thereto so long as it did not get into an innocent holder ’s hand. The equitable title to the check also passed to Hartung and the wrongful endorsement of it to some
In the case of Wells Fargo & Co. v. Miner, 25 Fed. 533, 1. c. 538, it was contended that because the bank had issued a certificate of deposit to one under circumstances much like the present case, the bank had entered into an independent contract and hence inter-pleader would not lie. The court, however, held that the issuance of the certificate did not create an independent liability. The title to the certificate was the only source of the liability and that was the very issue between the conflicting claimants. In that case the naked legal title to the certificate was in one of the claimants while only the exquitable title thereto was in the other. It will be noticed that while the case was governed by a statute of California providing that Ihe title of the claimants need not have a common source, yet, the court intimates that without that statute it would still be one for interpleader. And on the question of the independent liability created by the issuance of the certificate the statute had no bearing, since it did not cover that element essential to an equitable interpleader.
The case of Commerce Trust Co. v. Bank of Willow Springs, 161 Mo. App. 431, is not applicable to the case here. There, clearly under the admitted facts, there was but one duty for the bank to perform, since one of the claimants, Thomas, had paid the money without imposing restrictions and, therefore, could not recall it.
Again, it will be noticed that the independent liability spoken of as defeating a right to demand an interpleader means a liability beyond the 'liability which arises from the title to the property in controversy. The mere fact that a contractual obligation or relation exists between the party seeking the°interpleader and one of the claimants requiring its payment to such
The bank in this case had incurred no such independent liability as would defeat the right to demand an,, interpleader. Under the circumstances disclosed by the pleading it occupied the position of what might be called a disinterested stake holder, impartial so far as its conduct was concerned, acting- in good faith and having reasonable cause for a real doubt as to which of the claimants were entitled'to the check or the money represented by it. It was, therefore, entitled ro have the claimants interplead. [Little v. Union Trust Co., 197 Mo. 1. c. 291.] To hold that the bank in this case is not entitled to have the parties inter-plead would, in the opinion of the writer, greatly impair the rights and safety with which banking operations are carried on in our present day commercial civilization.
The judgment is reversed with directions to order