Ultramares Corporation v. Touche

• Decision Date: 06 January 1931
• Citation: 255 N.Y. 170
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: ULTRAMARES CORPORATION, Appellant and Respondent, v. GEORGE A. TOUCHE et al., Copartners under the Firm Name of TOUCHE, NIVEN & COMPANY, Respondents and Appellants.

255 N.Y. 170

174 N.E. 441

ULTRAMARES CORPORATION

v.TOUCHE et al.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Jan. 6, 1931.

Action by the Ultramares Corporation against George A. Touche and others, copartners doing business under the firm name of Touche, Niven & Co.From that part of the judgment of the Appellate Division(229 App. Div. 581, 243 N. Y. S. 179), which reversed a judgment of the Trial Term dismissing the complaint as to the first cause of action, reinstated a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, and gave judgment thereon in the sum of $203,058.97, defendants appeal, and, from that part of the judgment of the Appellate Division which affirmed a judgment of the Trial Term dismissing the complaint as to the second cause of action, the plaintiff appeals.

Reversed on defendant's appeal, and reversed and new trial granted on plaintiff's appeal.Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department.

Herbert R. Limburg, Martin Conboy, David L. Podell, Joseph L. Weiner, and Lionel S. Popkin, all of New York City, for plaintiffs-appellants-respondents.

Samuel Untermyer, John W. Davis, and James Marshall, all of New York City, for defendants-respondents-appellants.

Roger S. Baldwin, of New York City, J. Harry Covington, of Washington, D. C., and Kenneth McEwen, of New York City, amici curiae, for American Institute of Accountants.

CARDOZO, C. J.

The action is in tort for damages suffered through the misrepresentations of accountants, the first cause of action being for misrepresentations that were merely negligent, and the second for misrepresentations charged to have been fraudulent.

In January, 1924, the defendants, a firm of public accountants, were employed by Fred Stern & Co., Inc., to prepare and certify a balance sheet exhibiting the condition of its business as of December 31, 1923.They had been employed at the end of each of the three years preceding to render a like service.Fred Stern & Co., Inc., which was in substance Stern himself, was engaged in the importation and sale of rubber.To finance its operations, it required extensive credit and borrowed large sums of money from banks and other lenders.All this was known to the defendants.The defendants knew also that in the usual course of business the balance sheet when certified would be exhibited by the Stern Company to banks, creditors, stockholders, purchasers, or sellers, according to the needs of the occasion, as the basis of financial dealings.Accordingly, when the balance sheet was made up, the defendants supplied the Stern Company with thirty-two copies certified with serial numbers as counterpart originals.Nothing was said as to the persons to whom these counterparts would be shown or the extent or number of the transactions in which they would be used.In particular there was no mention of the plaintiff, a corporation doing business chiefly as a factor, which till then had never made advances to the Stern Company, though it had sold merchandise in small amounts.The range of the transactions in which a certificate of audit might be expected to play a part was as indefinite and wide as the possibilities of the business that was mirrored in the summary.

By February 26, 1924, the audit was finished and the balance sheet made up.It stated assets in the sum of $2,550,671.88 and liabilities other than capital and surplus in the sum of $1,479,956.62, thus showing a net worth of $1,070,715.26.Attached to the balance sheet was a certificate as follows:

‘Touche, Niven & Co.

‘Public Accountants

‘Eighty Maiden Lane

‘New York

‘February 26, 1924.

‘Certificate of Auditors

‘We have examined the accounts of Fred Stern & Co., Inc., for the year ending December 31, 1923, and hereby certify that the annexed balance sheet is in accordance therewith and with the information and explanations given us.We further certify that, subject to provision for federal taxes on income, the said statement, in our opinion, presents a true and correct view of the financial condition of Fred Stern & Co., Inc., as at December 31, 1923.

‘Touche, Niven & Co.

‘Public Accountants.’

Capital and surplus were intact if the balance sheet was accurate.In reality both had been wiped out, and the corporation was insolvent.The books had been falsified by those in charge of the business so as to set forth accounts receivable and other assets which turned out to be fictitious.The plaintiff maintains that the certificate of audit was erroneous in both its branches.The first branch, the asserted correspondence between the accounts and the balance sheet, is one purporting to be made as of the knowledge of the auditors.The second branch, which certifies to a belief that the condition reflected in the balance sheet presents a true and correct picture of the resources of the business, is stated as a matter of opinion.In the view of the plaintiff, both branches of the certificate are either fraudulent or negligent.As to one class of assets, the item of accounts receivable, if not also as to others, there was no real correspondence, we are told, between balance sheet and books, or so the triers of the facts might find.If correspondence, however, be assumed, a closer examination of supporting invoices and records, or a fuller inquiry directed to the persons appearing on the books as creditors or debtors, would have exhibited the truth.

The plaintiff, a corporation engaged in business as a factor, was approached by Stern in March, 1924, with a request for loans of money to finance the sales of rubber.Up to that time the dealings between the two houses were on a cash basis and trifling in amount.As a condition of any loans the plaintiff insisted that it receive a balance sheet certified by public accountants, and in response to that demand it was given one of the certificates signed by the defendants and then in Stern's possession.On the faith of that certificate the plaintiff made a loan which was followed by many others.The course of business was for Stern to deliver to the plaintiff documents described as trust receipts which in effect were executory assignments of the moneys payable by purchasersfor goods thereafter to be sold.When the purchase price was due, the plaintiff received the payment, reimbursing itself therefrom for its advances and commissions.Some of these transactions were effected without loss.Nearly a year later, in December, 1924, the house of cards collapsed.In that month, plaintiff made three loans to the Stern Company, one of $100,000, a second of $25,000, and a third of $40,000.For some of these loans no security was received.For some of the earlier loans the security was inadequate.On January 2, 1925, the Stern Company was declared a bankrupt.

This action, brought against the accountants in November, 1926, to recover the loss suffered by the plaintiff in reliance upon the audit, was in its inception one for negligence.On the trial there was added a second cause of action asserting fraud also.The trial judge dismissed the second cause of action without submitting it to the jury.As to the first cause of action, he reserved his decision on the defendants' motion to dismiss, and took the jury's verdict.They were told that the defendants might be held liable if with knowledge that the results of the audit would be communicated to creditors they did the work negligently, and that negligence was the omission to use reasonable and ordinary care.The verdict was in favor of the plaintiff for $187,576.32.On the coming in of the verdict, the judge granted the reserved motion.The Appellate Division(229 App. Div. 581, 243 N. Y. S. 179) affirmed the dismissal of the cause of action for fraud, but reversed the dismissal of the cause of action for negligence, and reinstated the verdict.The case is here on cross-appeals.

The two causes of action will be considered in succession, first the one for negligence and second that for fraud.

1.We think the evidence supports a finding that the audit was negligently made, though in so saying we put aside for the moment the question whether negligence, even if it existed, was a wrong to the plaintiff.To explain fully or adequately how the defendants were at fault would carry this opinion beyond reasonable bounds.A sketch, however, there must be, at least in respect of some features of the audit, for the nature of the fault, when understood, is helpful in defining the ambit of the duty.

We begin with the item of accounts receivable.At the start of the defendant's audit, there had been no posting of the general ledger since April, 1923.Siess, a junior accountant, was assigned by the defendants to the performance of that work.On Sunday, February 3, 1924, he had finished the task of posting, and was ready the next day to begin with his associates the preparation of the balance sheet and the audit of its items.The total of the accounts receivable for December, 1923, as thus posted by Siess from the entries in the journal, was $644,758.17.At some time on February 3, Romberg, an employee of the Stern Company, who had general charge of its accounts, placed below that total another item to represent additional accounts receivable growing out of the transactions of the month.This new item, $706,843.07, Romberg entered in his own handwriting.The sales that it represented were, each and all, fictitious.Opposite the entry were placed other figures (12-29), indicating or supposed to indicate a reference to the journal.Siess when he resumed his work saw the entries thus added, and included the new item in making up his footings, with the result of an apparent increase of over $700,000 in the assets of the business.He says that in doing this he supposed the entries to be correct, and that, his task at the moment being merely to post the books, he thought the work of audit or verification might come later, and put it off accordingly.The time sheets, which are in evidence, show very clearly that this was the...