Bradley v. Seaboard Nat. Bank

• Decision Date: 11 June 1901
• Citation: 167 N.Y. 427,60 N.E. 771
• Parties: BRADLEY v. SEABOARD NAT. BANK.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

167 N.Y. 427

60 N.E. 771

BRADLEY

v.SEABOARD NAT. BANK.

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 11, 1901.

Appeal from supreme court, appellate division, First department.

Action by Daniel Bradley against the Seaboard National Bank. From an order of the appellate division (62 N. Y. Supp. 51) reversing a judgment for defendant, it appeals. Reversed.

Herman Aaron, for appellant.

Philip Carpenter, for respondent.

LANDON, J.

The action is to recover the balance of a deposit in the defendant's bank to the credit of the firm of Crippen, Lawrence & Co., of Denver, Colo., September 18, 1893, on which day the firm made an assignment in insolvency. The bank on that date held the firm's note for $7,500, which would not become due until November following. The defense is that the bank loaned the amount of the note to the firm on the credit of its false and fraudulent statement to a mercantile agency as to its assets and liabilities, and therefore had the right to disaffirm and cancel the credit, and set off the note against the deposit. The trial court found that ‘Crippen, Lawrence & Co., through whom the plaintiff claims by assignments, did, prior to the loan hereinafter mentioned, make a statement of their financial condition to a commercial agency, with the knowledge that the same would be used and relied upon by parties giving credit to said firm, and with the intent and purpose that it should be so used and relied upon; that said statement was false, misleading, and fraudulent in material particulars; that, prior to the time of the making of the assignment for the benefit of creditors by said firm, said firm procured from the defendant a loan of a sum exceeding the amount in controversy herein, and on which there was unpaid at the time of said assignment for the benefit of creditors a sum exceeding the said amount in controversy; that said loan was made by the defendant, and subsequently extended by the said defendant, upon the faith and reliance of the aforesaid statement made to the commercial agency.’ Upon the facts found by the trial count, the judgment for the defendant was authorized. This judgment was reversed on the law, and not on the facts. No exceptions taken during the trial are brought to our notice. We cannot review the facts, and the only question of law for our consideration is whether the trial court found any fact material to the judgment for the defendant, without any evidence tending to support it.

The statement referred to was...