Bath Nat. Bank v. Ely N. Sonnenstrahl, Inc.

• Decision Date: 27 November 1928
• Parties: BATH NAT. BANK v. ELY N. SONNENSTRAHL, Inc.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

249 N.Y. 391

164 N.E. 327

BATH NAT. BANK

v.ELY N. SONNENSTRAHL, Inc.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Nov. 27, 1928.

Action by the Bath National Bank against Ely N. Sonnenstrahl, Inc. From a judgment of the Appellate Division (224 App. Div. 694, 228 N. Y. S. 750), affirming a judgment of the Trial Term on the verdict of a jury for defendant, plaintiff appeals.

Judgments reversed and new trial granted.Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth department.

James McCall, of Bath, for appellant.

W. Earl Costello, of Corning, for respondent.

LEHMAN J.

Early in February, 1926, the Bath Produce Company shipped by rail two lots of beans. In each case it received a uniform order bill of lading showing that the beans were consigned to its order at New York, with instructions to notify the defendant. It then drew two drafts on the broker, payable at sight or on arrival of shipments to the order of the plaintiff, and attached thereto the bills of lading indorsed without restriction. These were deposited to its credit in the plaintiff's bank and duly credited to the produce company, which subsequently drew checks against this credit, and these checks were paid.

The plaintiff promptly sent the drafts with bills of lading attached to a New York bank for collection, but when presented to defendant payment was refused. On learning this fact the plaintiff sent an agent to New York to make the collection, or if he could not do so to sell the beans on its account. This agent, however, was also one of the principal officers of the produce company. He delivered the bills of lading to the defendant-whether saying that he represented the plaintiff or claiming to act for the produce company is disputed. The beans were then delivered to the defendant and it sold them. If at the time the bills of lading were delivered to the defendant the plaintiff bank was a holder for value of the drafts and bills of lading, then the defendant must account to it.

[1] We assume that the plaintiff received the drafts merely for collection, and did not become the owner of the drafts at the time the deposit was made. The plaintiff by failure to move for the direction of a verdict, or to except to the portions of the charge in which such question of fact was submitted to the jury, is not in a position to urge now that there is no evidence to sustain the finding of the jury in that regard. The trial judge erred, however, in his refusal to charge that: ‘If the Bath National Bank, after crediting the amount of the drafts to the account of the Bath Produce Company, the Bath Produce Company drew on it by checks, then value was passed for the bills of lading.’ That request, even if inartificially drawn, was clearly intended and understood to mean that if the bank, though merely an agent for collection, advanced the amount of the drafts to its customer before the collection was made, then it became a holders for value of such drafts and the accompanying bills of lading. That proposition of law is established by an overwhelming mass of authority in this country, both judicial and extrajudicial.

Even where a depositor delivers to a bank a negotiable instrument without restrictive indorsement and the amount of the face value of the instrument is placed to the depositor's credit without special contract that the credit is only provisional, the bank does not become a holder for value until the depositor has actually availed himself of the credit so given by draft upon it. Citizens' State Bank v. Cowles, 180 N. Y. 346, 73 N. E. 33,105 Am. St. Rep. 765;Shawmut Nat. Bank v. Manson, 168 Mass. 425, 47 N. E. 196. The beneficial title of a bank receiving an instrument for collection only may be more restricted. That we need not now decide. None the less, the bank becomes a holder for value when it makes advances upon the instrument in advance of collection. At least it may then hold the...