Seager v. Dauphinee

• Citation: 187 N.E. 94,284 Mass. 96
• Parties: SEAGER v. DAUPHINEE et al.
• Decision Date: 14 September 1933
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

284 Mass. 96

187 N.E. 94

SEAGER

v.DAUPHINEE et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Sept. 14, 1933.

Appeal from Superior Court, Suffolk County; F. J. Donahue, Judge.

Suit by David C. Seager against Walter A. Dauphinee and others. From a final decree dismissing the bill, plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed.M. Collingwood and H. R. Maraghy, both of Plymouth, for appellant.

Kopelman & Kopelman and Elmer Brown, all of Boston, for respondents.

RUGG, Chief Justice.

The plaintiff by this suit in equity seeks relief against several defendants for loss occasioned to him because a certified check taken by him in part payment for conveyance of land was not paid. The material facts were found by the trial judge in substance as follows: The plaintiff executed a deed of land in Boston to the defendant Dauphinee, who was the nominee of the defendant Greenberg. The agreement for that conveyance called for the payment of $900 in cash and a mortgage for $4,300. The papers in the transaction were passed in the office of Greenberg in Boston at about eleven o'clock in the forenoon of Wednesday, December 9, 1931. The plaintiff was not present. The attorney for the plaintiff took from Dauphinee a note and mortgage for $4,300 and from Greenberg a check on the Federal National Bank of Boston for $900 dated December 9, 1931, drawn and procured to be certified before delivery by Greenberg. The plaintiff's attorney lived in Plymounth and the plaintiff in the adjoining town of Kingston. The certified check was mailed to the plaintiff by his attorney on Thursday, December 10, 1931. The plaintiff had no mail delivery service but got his mail by going to the post office, to which he made no regular trips. The plaintiff, on Tuesday, December 15, by messenger, sent the check to the Old Colony National Bank in Plymouth for deposit to his account. The messenger was there informed that the Federal National Bank had suspended business and the check was not forwarded to the latter bank for collection or payment. The federal authorities took charge of the Federal National Bank as of the opening of business on December 15, 1931, its directors having voted to request such action after the close of business on Monday, December 14, 1931. If the check had been presented at the Federal National Bank before the close of business on December 14, it would have been paid.

The trial judge found and ruled that the plaintiff waited an unreasonable length of time before delivering the check to his own bank for collection; also ruled that when the check was certified by the Federal National Bank such certification constituted acceptance, that the plaintiff had a remedy upon the check against the Federal National Bank and must be remitted to that remedy, and ordered the entry of a final decree dismissing the bill. From that final decree the plaintiff appealed.

The case somes before us on appeal from final decree dismissing the bill. There is no report of the evidence. The findings of fact by the trial judge must therefore be accepted as true, since they are not inconsistent one with another. Granlund v. Saraf, 263 Mass. 76, 79, 160 N. E. 408;Booras v. Logan, 266 Mass. 172, 174, 164 N. E. 921;Peabody v. Dymsza, 280 Mass. 341, 342, 182 N. E. 580. The entry of a final decree dismissing the bill imports the drawing of all rational inferences against the plaintiff so far as necessary to that result. Nelson v. Wentworth, 243 Mass. 377, 379, 137 N. E. 646. Such decree must be affirmed if it could lawfully have been entered on the facts found. First Baptist Society in Brookfield v. Dexter, 193 Mass. 187, 189, 79 N. E. 342,Briggs v. Sanford, 219 Mass. 572, 573, 107 N. E. 436. The case has been argued on the theory that the check was...