National Bank of Commerce of Seattle v. Seattle National Bank

Citations

• 109 Wash. 312
• 187 P. 342
• 1920 Wash. LEXIS 931

Syllabus

<p>Banks and Banking (25)—Payment of Fobged Checks—Rights as Between Banks—Acceptance—Effect. Where checks to fictitious payees with forged indorsements passed through the clearing house and were paid by the drawee bank, the payment admits the existence of the payees and their capacity to indorse, under Rem. Code, § 3453, providing that acceptance of a check admits the existence of the drawer and drawee and their capacity to draw and indorse; since payment includes acceptance.</p> <p>Same (25). In such case, the drawee bank paying the checks cannot recover the sums from the bank passing them through the clearing house, on the ground of the nonexistence of the payees and negligence in paying forged checks, upon showing that the person depositing and indorsing the checks and forging the names of the payees was acting under an assumed name as a customer of the passing bank, where such party was at all times insolvent and deposited to a checking account in usual course and there was nothing to put the passing bank upon inquiry; since the vice of the transaction rested in the fact of the fictitious payees, whose existence, under the statute, was admitted by the drawee when it paid them.</p> <p>Same (25). A national depositary bank chargeable with notice of the regulations of the Treasury Department requiring checks of a public disbursing officer to state the object or purpose for which any check was drawn cannot claim negligence ,on the part of other banks not aware of the regulations in causing a loss by passing checks drawn upon the depositary bank to fictitious payees by a public disbursing officer, where for years such depositary bank cashed and passed a stream of such checks by such officer which contained no notation as to their object or purpose, and gave no caution or notice that they were irregular on their face.</p> <p>Bills and Notes (90)—Payment of Check—Rights of Pabties— “Holdek.” Rem. & Bal. Code, § 3457, of the negotiable instrument law providing that all