First Nat. Bank of Chicago v. Northwestern Nat. Bank of Chicago

• Decision Date: 18 January 1892
• Citation: First Nat. Bank of Chicago v. Northwestern Nat. Bank of Chicago, 29 N.E. 884 (Ill. 1892)
• Parties: FIRST NAT. BANK OF CHICAGO v. NORTHWESTERN NAT. BANK OF CHICAGO.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

29 N.E. 884

FIRST NAT. BANK OF CHICAGO

v.NORTHWESTERN NAT. BANK OF CHICAGO.¹

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Jan. 18, 1892.

Appeal from appellate court, first district.

Assumpsit by the North western National Bank of Chicago against the First National Bank of Chicago. Plaintiff obtained judgment, which was affirmed by the appellate court. Defendant appeals. Affirmed.Remy & Mann, for appellant.

C. M. Sturges, for appellee.

WILKIN, J.

This was a suit in assumpsit by appellee against appellant in the superior court of Cook county. It was tried by the court without the intervention of a jury, and judgment rendered for the plaintiff for $2,454 and costs of suit. On appeal to the appellate court of the first district that judgment has been affirmed, and plaintiff below again appeals to this court. The action was brought to recover the amount of nine bank-checks. The case made by the plaintiff on the trial was in substance as follows: Nine several checks of different amounts and dates were made, purporting to be drawn by the Western Union Telephone Company, signed by W. S. Chapman, treasurer, and countersigned by George L. Phillips, president, upon it, the said Northwestern National Bank, five of which were made payable to C. H. Wilson, A. G. Supt., and the remaining four to F. P. Ross, manager. Each of these checks purporting to be indorsed by the payees therein passed into the hands of Chapin & Gore, who indorsed them, ‘For deposit in the First National Bank to the credit of Chapin & Gore,’ and delivered them to the defendant, which further indorsed them, ‘Pay through Chicago clearing-house only, to First National Bank,’ and through said clearing-house, so indorsed, presented them to the plaintiff for payment, and received from it in payment thereof the full amount called for by said checks. That each of said checks were in fact not made by said Western Union Telephone Company, nor signed by said Chapman, treasurer, nor countersigned by said president, but were forgeries; and that they were not in fact indorsed by the payees therein named, or either of them, but that said indorsements were also forgeries; and that plaintiff paid said checks on the said presentation by the defendant, in ignorance of such forgeries; and that, after discovering the same, it tendered the checks back to the defendant, and demanded repayment of the money paid by it on the same, but the defendant refused such repayment. Also that two of said checks, before they came into the hands of said Chapin & Gore, had been accepted by the plaintiff, ‘payable through the Chicago clearing-house.’ The recovery in the trial court was for the full amount of all these checks, with the accrued interest thereon since the payment by plaintiff.

Appellant has favored us with no brief or argument other than that filed in the appellate court. As we can deal only with questions of law, much of that brief and argument has no application here. No objection whatever was made at the trial to evidence introduced by the plaintiff, nor was any testimony offered by the defendant excluded. Therefore no question can be or is raised on the rulings of the court on the admission or exclusion of testimony. It has been...