Case Name: Hughes v. The Neal Loan and Banking Company
Court: Supreme Court of Georgia
Jurisdiction: Georgia
Decision Date: 1895-12-02
Citations: 97 Ga. 383
Docket Number: 
Parties: Hughes v. The Neal Loan and Banking Company.
Judges: 
Reporter: Georgia Reports
Volume: 97
Pages: 383–384

Head Matter:
Hughes v. The Neal Loan and Banking Company.
December 2, 1895.
Complaint. Before Judge Westmoreland. City court of Atlanta. May term, 1895.
The plaintiff was an illiterate woman, seventy-seven years old. W. L. Hunter was acting for ber to obtain a pension which she claimed from the United States. In December, 1893, a check for $2,725.21, payable to her order, was issued by a pension agent, upon the assistant treasurer of the United States at New York. This check was presented to the defendant bank to be cashed. It then purported to bear the endorsement of the plaintiff by her mark, attested by Gr. M. Dickey. The bank cashed it upon the further endorsement of J. R. Dickey, who seems to have been accompanied by Hunter when it was presented. It does not appear how Hunter obtained possession of it. The plaintiff testified that she never saw it before it was collected, and that she never endorsed it nor authorized this to be done. It further appears from her testimony, that after receiving $100 from Hunter, she ascertained that he had collected a much larger amount, and demanded that he pay the same to her. He said, if she would not stand to an arrangement she had previously made with him, he would send the money and pension papers back to Washington. After considerable negotiation, and under advice of a friend whom she had called to assist her in the matter, she accepted from Hunter, in settlement, $1,000 and a promissory note for $1,300. She knew, at the time of this settlement, the amount that Hunter had collected.

Opinion:
Atkinson, J.
The evidence of the plaintiff herself showing affirmatively that, though she had never endorsed the government check payable to her order, she had ratified its unauthorized collection by accepting in settlement of her claim a part of the proceeds of the check and a promissory note, and that in so doing she acted with a full knowledge of all the material facts, the bank through which the collection of the check was negotiated was not liable to her, and the court was right in awarding a nonsuit. Judgment affirmed.
T. W. Latham and W. F. Candler, for plaintiff.
Marshall J. Clarke, for defendant..