Exchange Bank of St. Augustine v. Florida Nat. Bank of Jacksonville

• Citation: 292 So.2d 361
• Decision Date: 13 February 1974
• Docket Number: No. 44022,44022
• Parties: EXCHANGE BANK OF ST. AUGUSTINE, etc., Petitioner, v. The FLORIDA NATIONAL BANK OF JACKSONVILLE, etc., Respondent.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Florida

Page 361

292 So.2d 361

EXCHANGE BANK OF ST. AUGUSTINE, etc., Petitioner, v. The FLORIDA NATIONAL BANK OF JACKSONVILLE, etc., Respondent.

No. 44022.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Feb. 13, 1974.

Rehearing Denied April 26, 1974.

John J. Upchurch and Upchurch & Upchurch, St. Augustine, for petitioner.

J. W. Harrell, Harrell & Perrine, Jacksonville, for respondent.

ERVIN, Justice.

This is a conflict certiorari review of the decision of the District Court of Appeal, First District, in the case of Florida National Bank of Jacksonville v. The Exchange Bank of St. Augustine (1973), 277 So.2d 313, wherein the District Court reversed a jury's verdict and judgment thereon in the sum of $3,700 in favor of The Exchange Bank, petitioner herein against respondent The Florida National Bank.

The facts in the case are as follows: On June 27, 1968, one Edward M. Reizen attempted to draw a check for $3,700 on his account with Community National Bank & Trust Company in Bal Harbour, Florida, payable to Upchurch & Upchurch, Attorneys in St. Augustine, Florida. Reizen drew the check on a blank form writing 'Community National Bank of Bal Harbour' and gave its location as 'Bal Harbour, Florida.' He wrote in the routing symbol of his bank, 06 31--0599 in the upper left corner of the check. The payees endorsed the check and deposited it in their trust account in the petitioner Bank on July 1, 1968.

In due course the petitioner Bank forwarded the check for collection to respondent Bank where it was received on July 3, 1968.

Respondent Bank encoded the check for routing, however, the encoded symbol magnetically inked thereon was that of 'Peoples National Bank of Bay Harbour Islands, #06 31--0195,' an incorrect bank

On July 3, 1968, the mistakenly coded check was sent by respondent to the Federal Reserve Bank in Jacksonville, Florida, where it was sorted by automatic machine and routed by mail to Peoples National Bank of Bay Harbour Islands. It was received by that bank on or about July 8, 1968, but because it was not drawn on said bank, it was mailed back to the Federal Reserve Bank of Jacksonville. The Federal Reserve Bank has no record of having ever received it back. The Reserve Bank learned of the item's loss on August 30, 1971, and that day forwarded a photostat of the missing original check to the drawee bank, Community National Bank & Trust Company at Bal Harbour, Florida.

Reizen would not pay the photostated check. Moreover, his account had been reduced to less than $3,700 on August 16, 1968. On September 20, 1968, the respondent notified petitioner of the loss and on November 8, 1968, respondent charged petitioner's forwarding account with it, the sum of $3,700.

Petitioner instituted suit to recover the $3,700 alleging the loss was the proximate result of respondent's related misencoding. The jury's verdict and judgment resulted as above stated.

On appeal the District Court reversed and in opinion said:

'It is well established that in order to prove negligence it must be shown that the wrongful act was the proximate cause of the injury, absent any efficient intervening causes. In order for an intervening cause to supersede a prior negligence, it must be capable of bringing about a direct injurious result independent of the prior action. It must be the cause which interrupts the sequence of events, prevents the natural result of the original act, and reasonably might not have been anticipated, 57 Am.Jur.2d, Negligence, § 193.

'If the intervening event was foreseeable by the original wrongdoer, then it does not supersede the original negligence. For a thorough analysis of proximate cause, see this court's opinion in Pope v. Pinkerton-Hay Lumber Co., 120 So.2d 227 (Fla.App.1960).

'In the case sub judice, the loss in transit was independent of the erroneous encoding. It interrupted the logical sequence of events in that if the check had not been lost in the mail it would have been...