Opinion
October 7, 1931.
January 28, 1932.
Banks and banking — Depositor — Checks — "Stop order" — Notification of branch banks — Certification of check prior to receipt of notice by branch bank.
In an action of assumpsit against a bank to recover the amount of two checks drawn upon it by a depositor, the evidence established that the plaintiff delivered the checks to the payees and that shortly thereafter he notified the manager of the defendant's branch bank to stop payment. The manager of the branch bank immediately notified the main office and the tellers at the main office were promptly informed of the "stop order." Before one of the tellers in the main office, however, received notification he certified the two checks and returned them to the payees.
In such case the plaintiff failed to give the defendant a reasonable time within which to notify its different branches of the "stop order" and a judgment entered for the defendant will be sustained.
A depositor has the right to stop payment of his checks and it is the duty of the bank to comply with his notice, provided it is received before the checks are paid or certified. The bank, however, is entitled to a reasonable time within which to communicate the "stop order" to its different branches.
Appeal No. 246, October T., 1931, by plaintiff from order and judgment of M.C., Philadelphia County, October T., 1929, No. 877, in the case of Henry J. Steiner v. Germantown Trust Company, a corporation.
Before TREXLER, P.J., KELLER, LINN, GAWTHROP, CUNNINGHAM and BALDRIGE, JJ. Affirmed.
Assumpsit to recover the sum of two checks. Before BONNIWELL, J., without a jury.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the Superior Court.
Finding for defendant and judgment entered thereon. Plaintiff appealed.
Error assigned, among others, was refusal of defendant's motion for judgment non obstante veredicto.
Maurice J. Friedman, for appellant.
Henry R. Heebner and with him John Russell, Jr., and Morgan, Lewis Bockius, for appellee.
Argued October 7, 1931.
Plaintiff, a depositor in defendant trust company, sued it to recover the amount of two checks drawn by him upon it; his allegation was that defendant honored them after due notice from him to stop payment. The case was tried before a judge of the municipal court who found in favor of defendant; plaintiff now appeals from the judgment entered upon the finding.
These facts clearly appear from the testimony: Defendant's main office is located at the corner of Germantown and Chelten Avenues and its Logan Branch at Broad and Ruscomb Streets. About one o'clock on the afternoon of July 30, 1929, plaintiff while in the Widener Building, Penn Square, drew two checks to the order of Vendo Products Company — one for $200 and the other for $13 — and delivered them to a representative of that company. Approximately fifteen minutes later, plaintiff, for reasons personal to him and not important here, decided to stop payment of the checks. He called Bedford, manager of the Logan Branch, by telephone and told him the checks "were not to be honored;" Bedford replied that "if the checks had not been paid" payment would be stopped, and told plaintiff to come in the following day to sign a written direction. Bedford immediately called the main office at Germantown and communicated plaintiff's direction to Jones, one of several tellers then on duty; Jones promptly began notifying the other tellers, one of whom was Earl Shallcross. When he reached his window and gave him the "stop order," Shallcross exclaimed, "There goes the man out the door, I just certified the two checks." The testimony of Shallcross was that about ten minutes before two the representative of the Vendo Products Company presented the checks at his window for certification; that he took them to the bookkeeping department, verified the signatures of plaintiff, ascertained there was a sufficient balance in his account, stamped a formal certification on each check, had the certification signed by the proper teller and handed the checks to the representative of the payee who left the bank a few seconds before Jones advised him of plaintiff's notice.
The result of applying the law to these facts is a finding for defendant. Plaintiff had a right to stop payment of his checks and it was the duty of defendant to comply with his notice, provided it was received before the checks were paid or certified: Wall v. Franklin Trust Company, 84 Pa. Super. 392. The certification of the checks was equivalent to an acceptance and had the effect of transferring the funds represented thereby from the credit of plaintiff to that of the payee, which company to all intents and purposes then became a depositor of defendant to the amount of the checks: Schmitt v. Mellon National Bank, 67 Pa. Super. 453.
The entire argument of counsel for appellant is based upon a confusing, inconsistent and unsupported statement in the opinion of the trial judge, reading: "There is no question that notice was given in time." If the trial judge intended to say that the office of defendant to which the checks were presented had notice prior to their certification, such statement is without the slightest support in the evidence. It is more probable he merely meant to say the Logan Branch had notice before acceptance by the main office, as, in a subsequent portion of his opinion, he said he thought defendant was entitled to such notice "as will enable it to notify [its] different branches." However, we are more concerned with the judgment entered by the court below than with the reasons stated therefor. The judgment is clearly right and the time, labor and money expended in taking this appeal might have been more profitably applied.
Judgment affirmed.