Fidelity-Baltimore Nat. Bank & Trust Co. v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 18 June 1958
• Docket Number: FIDELITY-BALTIMORE,No. 279,279
• Citation: 142 A.2d 796,217 Md. 367
• Parties: NATIONAL BANK & TRUST CO., etc., and Equitable Trust Company, v. JOHN HANCOCK MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 367

217 Md. 367

142 A.2d 796

FIDELITY-BALTIMORE NATIONAL BANK & TRUST CO., etc., and Equitable Trust Company, v. JOHN HANCOCK MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY.

No. 279.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

June 18, 1958.

Gordon C. Murray, Baltimore (Robert D. Bartlett, Baltimore, on the brief) for appellant.

Harry Adelberg, Baltimore (Barnett L. Silver, Baltimore, on the brief) for appellee.

Before HENDERSON, HAMMOND, PRESCOTT and HORNEY, JJ.

PRESCOTT, Judge.

This is the second appeal in this case. The former appeal is reported as John Hancock Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Fidelity-Baltimore National Bank & Trust Co., 212 Md. 506, 129 A.2d 815, and involved three separate but consolidated cases, two only of which are embraced in the present appeal. There was no dispute as to the facts in the first appeal, and, likewise, there is none here. The stipulated facts are fully set forth in the former opinion; so, they will be summarized here. The suits arise out of the fraudulent acts of one Robert J. Wright, who, at the time, was employed by the appellee as manager of its Baltimore office. Mr. Wright presented false claims in behalf of fictitious claimants on insurance policies in effect with the appellee. It, having no knowledge of the deception, issued checks drawn to the order of fictitious claimants, in payment of these false claims. Some of these checks were drawn on the Fidelity Trust Company and the remainder on two banks located in Boston, and all were forwarded to Wright in Baltimore. Wright forged the indorsements of the fictitious payees on the back of each check, and immediately below the forged indorsement, he indorsed each check with another of three certain assumed names in which he maintained separate checking accounts, two at the Calvert Bank and one at the Equitable Trust Company. Having fraudulently indorsed the checks, he took them to the last mentioned banks, deposited them in one of the accounts which he carried therein under the assumed names, and shortly thereafter checked the money out. These banks, in turn, indorsed the checks with their names, guaranteeing all prior indorsements, and collected the face amount of each check from the bank upon which it was drawn. As soon as the appellee discovered the fraud, all parties were notified. Without stating more of the details, the present cases were brought by the appellee as the drawer of the checks against the appellants as collecting banks that had cashed or deposited the checks that had forged indorsements upon them, indorsed the checks, themselves, and guaranteed all prior indorsements, and collected the face value of the checks from the drawee banks.

In the first appeal, the trial court had sustained demurrers to the same declarations involved herein. In that appeal, as here, there was no factual dispute. The demurrers not only admitted the facts well pleaded, but the facts were conceded by the then appellees (appellants now). After this Court had held that the demurrers were improperly sustained, the present appellants entered into a stipulation of facts that admits every material allegation of fact contained in the declarations. The Constitution of this State, Article IV. section 15, provides that the judgment of this Court shall be 'final and conclusive.' After we had determined that the facts as stated in the declarations were sufficient to state causes of action, it should be obvious that those same facts, when agreed upon by stipulation of the parties and filed in the cases, entitled the appellee, upon proper motion, to summary judgment, which the trial judge properly entered. Moodhe v. Schenker, 176 Md. 259, 267, 4 A.2d 453.

The appellants, however, attempt to raise two questions on this appeal. The first, they state in this manner: 'Is a collecting bank liable to the drawer of a check issued to a fictitious payee, such fact being unknown to the drawer and such check bearing a forged indorsement?' The second is the so-called 'Impostor Rule,' which they claim constitutes a bar against ...