Mott Iron Works v. Metropolitan Bank

Citations

• 78 Wash. 294
• 139 P. 36
• 1914 Wash. LEXIS 1015

Syllabus

<p>Principal and Agent — Authority of Agent — Pleading — Complaint. In an action to recover from a bank the amount of a check, paid to the plaintiff’s agent on his general indorsement, when defendant was alleged to have had notice that the agent’s authority was limited to indorsement for deposit only, an allegation that the agent was not authorized to draw or check against plaintiff’s account should not be stricken out as irrelevant, since it bore upon the extent of the agent’s authority to indorse checks received by him and upon his general authority as plaintiff’s agent.</p> <p>Banks and Banking — Deposits by Agent — -Authority of Agent— Limitations — Burden of Proof. In an action against a bank to recover the amount of a check, indorsed by plaintiff’s agent, and credited to the agent’s account, the plaintiff has the burden of proving that the agent was authorized to indorse the check for deposit only, and that defendant had knowledge of such limitation, where the complaint alleged that the agent had authority to collect and receive and indorse for deposit checks drawn to plaintiff’s order and that his authority was limited, to defendant’s knowledge, and the answer denied that such limitations existed or that it had knowledge thereof; and the rule is not changed by the introduction of affirmative matter in the answer.</p> <p>Same — Actions—Authority op Agent — Question eor Jury. In an action against a bank to recover the amount of a check, indorsed by plaintiff’s agent, and credited to the agent’s account, the liability of the defendant is for the jury, where there was evidence that the agent’s authority had been specially limited to indorse plaintiff’s checks for deposit only, and that plaintiff had knowledge thereof, and that the check in question was either deposited by the agent and credited to his private account, or later transferred from plaintiffs account to his own, and finally withdrawn by him, one witness testifying that an officer of the bank had state