ON WHOM THE LOSS FALLS WHERE A CHEQUE I PAID BY A BANKER AFTER A FRAUDULENT ALTERATION OF THE AMOUNT.

Dunstan Times, Issue 600, 17 October 1873, Page 3

ON WHOM THE LOSS FALLS WHERE A CHEQUE I PAID BY A BANKER AFTER A FRAUDULENT ALTERATION OF THE AMOUNT.

A proposition was laid down in the Moll y Article of *• The Times ” recently, says fie " Financier,” without any qualification, to which in rcali y a very important qnailication attaches. The preposition was this “If a man 1 raws a cheque for 8 1., an 1 -the Banker pays SO/., owing to its h.ivmg been cleverly tampered with, that is the b inker’s affair, and cannot affect the .■customer, who only authorised the payment of only SI." Now this, although generally, is not universally true, there being this very reasonable an I proper qualification—that, if the act of the customer has facilitat'd or given occasion to the forgery, the lo<s will fall on him, and not on the banker, This was decided in the case ot 41 Young v. Grote” (4 Bi ghain, 253), which is thus alluded to by Mr. Newman in his pamphlet on the Law of Cheques : A customer of a bank, on leaving home, entrusted to his wife so veual blank forms of cheques signed by himself; and desired her to Jill them up, according as his business might require. She or lore I her liusba id’s clerk to fill up nn\ with the ..words Fifty pounds two shillings, which he did, beginning th-word fifty with a small letter in the middle of a lino. The figures 50, 2, were also place I at a considerable distance to the right of the printed £. She gave the cheque so filled up to the clerk to cash, He, before pres rating it, inserted the words 1 three hundred ’ before * fiftv, ’ an I the figure 3 between the £ and figures 50 2, so that then it appeared to-be a-cheque for 3501. 2s. It was prtsented, and paid by the hankers. It was held that the improper mode of (Fling up the cheque led to the forgi ry, an 1 therefore that the loss fell on the customer, and not on the banker. ” A Government Grant.—The President of the United. States., i - - - - .a - • . ri . Y. r