The Northwestern Coal Co. v. Bowman & Co.

• Decision Date: 16 June 1886
• Citation: The Northwestern Coal Co. v. Bowman & Co., 28 N.W. 496, 69 Iowa 150 (Iowa 1886)
• Parties: THE NORTHWESTERN COAL Co. v. BOWMAN & Co
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

28 N.W. 496

69 Iowa 150

THE NORTHWESTERN COAL Co. v. BOWMAN & Co

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

June 16, 1886

Appeal from Ida Circuit Court.

ACTION against defendants on their indorsement of a draft drawn by a banker doing business at Odebolt, in this state, on the First National Bank of Chicago.Plaintiff recovered judgment in the circuit court, and defendants appealed.The material facts are stated in the opinion.

REVERSED.

W. A Helsell, for appellants.

Gray Warren & Buchanan, for appellee.

OPINION

REED J.

Plaintiff is a corporation, engaged in mining and selling coal, at Moingona, Boone county, and defendants are coal merchants at Odebolt, in Sac county.On the thirty-first of October, 1883, defendants purchased from a banker, at Odebolt, a draft drawn by himself on the First National Bank of Chicago, for $ 592.47.The draft was made payable to the order of defendants, and they indorsed it to plaintiff, and sent it by mail to plaintiff, who received it at Moingona on the same day on which it was drawn.It was sent by defendants and received by plaintiff in payment of an indebtedness.There was no bank at Moingona, and plaintiff kept its bank account with a banker at Boone, which is about six or seven miles from Moingona.Plaintiff's manager kept the draft in his possession until the seventh of November, when he deposited it with the banker at Boone, who, on the same day, transmitted it by mail to the bank in Chicago with which he kept his account.It was received by the Chicago bank on the morning of the 8th, and during banking hours on that day it was presented to the bank on which it was drawn for payment, but payment was refused, for the reason that the drawer did not then have sufficient funds on deposit with the bank to meet it.On the day on which it was drawn, and on the following day, the drawer's account at the bank was overdrawn.On the second day of November he had a small balance to his credit, but the amount was not sufficient to meet the draft; but on the third and fourth he had credit for a balance greater than the amount of the draft.The fourth, however, was Sunday.On the fifth this balance was reduced by the payment of other drafts to a sum less than the amount of the draft, and on that day the drawer closed his banking house, and made an assignment for the benefit of creditors.

Moingona and Boone are situated on a line of railroad on which there is a daily mail to Chicago.Plaintiff received the draft at five P. M., on the thirty-first of October, which was after the mail for that day had passed; but if the draft had been placed in the mail at Moingona or Boone before four P. M., on any day between that and the seventh of November, it would, in the ordinary course of the mails, have been received in Chicago the next morning.The draft was protested on the day on which it was presented, and payment refused and the notary certified that within forty-eight hours from the time of such protest he placed a notice in the post-office, at Chicago, directed to defendants, at Boone, Iowa, in which they were informed that the draft had been presented, and payment thereof refused.This certificate was admitted in evidence on the trial, but there was no other proof of notice to defendants of the dishonor of the draft.The excuse given by plaintiff for its failure to have the draft presented for payment at an earlier date is that its manager at Moingona was also the superintendent of its coal mine, and that the demands of his employment were such that he could not, without detriment to the business, go to the bank at Boone oftener than once or twice in a week; and that it was his practice, when he received drafts...