25 S.E. 971 | N.C. | 1896
The drawer of the check lived in Raleigh, N.C. and the payees lived in New York City. The check was deposited by the payees in the plaintiff bank in New York, and by the plaintiffs sent on to the Bank of New Hanover at Wilmington, N.C. with (308) endorsement, "For collection for account of National Citizens' Bank of New York" (the plaintiff). The check was sent by the Bank of New Hanover to the defendant bank at Raleigh, with the additional endorsement, "For collection account of Bank of New Hanover, Wilmington, N.C." The defendant bank entered a credit on its books to the Bank of New Hanover for the amount of the check fifteen minutes before the registration of the deed of assignment made by the Bank of New Hanover on account of insolvency. The money was collected on the same day the credit was given. The balance on the reciprocal accounts between the New Hanover Bank and the defendant bank, after the credit of the amount of the check, was in favor of defendants. The plaintiff bank and the Bank of New Hanover kept no reciprocal accounts. On the contrary, the plaintiff would send to the Bank of New Hanover matters for collection, and when collected the New Hanover Bank would remit the proceeds to the plaintiff. The New Hanover Bank did not have on its ledger any account with the plaintiff bank. It kept only the record of its transactions with the plaintiff on its collection register. Upon the facts (which his Honor found by agreement) judgment was entered for the plaintiff, and the defendants appealed from the judgment. There was no error in the rendering of the judgment. The defendants saw, from the endorsements on the check, that it was the property of the plaintiff and that the New Hanover Bank was merely an agent to collect it for the plaintiff. Boykin v. Bank,
The contention of the defendants that the check was not the property of the plaintiff can not be sustained. The complaint alleged that it was the property of the plaintiffs and it was not denied in the answer except by legal inference. The defendants averred that the title to the check, as a matter of law, passed out of the plaintiff to the Bank of New (310) Hanover when the former sent it to the latter for collection. This is not a sound proposition of law; for, as we have seen, the endorsement was restricted. The plaintiffs having been in possession of the check, and having alleged in their complaint that they were the owners of it, the presumption is that it was their property; and this presumption not having been rebutted, the finding of his Honor was correct.
AFFIRMED.
Cited: Next case; and Bank v. Wilson,