7 Mo. App. 532 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1879
delivered the opinion of the court.
The appellant rests his case upon a single proposition, contending that the payee or holder of a banker’s check cannot maintain a suit at law against the bank having funds of the drawer, though presentation has been duly made and payment of the check demanded. This is a vexed question, and the decision of most respectable courts may be adduced on either side. Most of these decisions were carefully considered by this court in McGrade v. German Savings Institution, 4 Mo. App. 330, and Zelle v. German Savings Institution, 4 Mo. App. 401, and the contrary of the above proposition was reached as a correct conclusion. Though the
We are referred to what is said by Mr. Morse in the recent-edition of his work on Banking (2d ed., p. 25), to the effect that the denial of the holder’s right to sue will probably hereafter become the doctrine generally accepted in this country. We are directly of the opposite opinion. The weight of reasoning, we think, is clearly in favor of the holder’s right. The contrary doctrine is equivalent to a confession that the law is incompetent to extend well-established principles to new cases as the latter arise from new contracts created by commercial necessities.
All the judges concurring,