Case Name: HIBERNIA NATIONAL BANK IN NEW ORLEANS v. Mable LEE; Mable LEE v. HIBERNIA NATIONAL BANK IN NEW ORLEANS
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1977-02-23
Citations: 344 So. 2d 16
Docket Number: Nos. 7935, 7936
Parties: HIBERNIA NATIONAL BANK IN NEW ORLEANS v. Mable LEE. Mable LEE v. HIBERNIA NATIONAL BANK IN NEW ORLEANS.
Judges: Before SAMUEL, REDMANN and BEER, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 344
Pages: 16–21

Head Matter:
HIBERNIA NATIONAL BANK IN NEW ORLEANS v. Mable LEE. Mable LEE v. HIBERNIA NATIONAL BANK IN NEW ORLEANS.
Nos. 7935, 7936.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.
Feb. 23, 1977.
Rehearings Denied April 13, 1977.
Fabacher & Murov, Mark G. Murov, New Orleans, for defendant-appellant.
Favret, Favret & Demarest, Thomas J. Lutkewitte, New Orleans, for plaintiff-ap-pellee.
Before SAMUEL, REDMANN and BEER, JJ.

Opinion:
BEER, Judge.
Appellant, Mable Lee, purchased an automobile on November 25, 1974, and, in connection therewith, executed a promissory note for $3,308.10, payable to "Bearer at the main office of Hibernia National Bank" (hereafter, "Hibernia"). She made several payments to Hibernia by checks drawn on her checking account at Bank of Louisiana, and, then, on August 30, 1975, opened a checking account with Hibernia, signing, at that time, a signature card which contained the proviso that:
"2. Bank shall have right to charge against Account any liabilities whatsoever of any Depositor to Bank . . ."
She made some further payments to Hibernia from her Hibernia checking account but then missed the payments due in September and October, 1975. However, she made a payment "in the range of $40.00" on or about October 31, 1975, for the privilege of deferring the two past due payments until November. No payments were made in November or December of 1975. Lee contends that she sought to make a payment on her loan account on January 2, 1976, at the Mid City office of Hibernia, but Miss Ann Marie Lodato, a drive-up window teller at that branch, testified that, on January 2, Lee presented two checks (one for $110.27 and a payroll check for $200.47) totaling $310.74, and a deposit slip for $175.00. Lo-dato treated this as a "cash transaction," and paid Lee $135.74 in cash, and a credit to her checking account for $175.00. Thus, the bank had no record of a January, 1976 loan payment (none having been made as far as their records were concerned), and the transaction showing on their records only as a cash transaction and checking account deposit.
Having received no loan payments, the bank warned Lee on January 20, 1976, and, again, at the end of January, that she was delinquent. Apparently these efforts on the part of the bank caused Lee to forward a check dated January 30, 1976, in the amount of $220.54, which appears to have been cashed on February 4, 1976. If this payment was attributed to the past due payments for September and October, it, nevertheless, left unpaid the installments due in November and December of 1975 and January of 1976. Thus, on February 27, 1976, Hibernia "froze" a balance of $686.08 in Lee's checking account, having already (February 5, 1976) instituted suit on the note and seizure of the automobile.
Lee filed suit against Hibernia on March 6, 1976, seeking damages for wrongful seizure and wrongful dishonor of her checks (which resulted from the freezing) and also sought injunctive relief. Her claims against Hibernia were consolidated for trial with Hibernia's hypothecary action via executiva. All of Lee's claims were dismissed by the trial court, but she devolu-tively appeals the rejection of her demand for damages arising from the allegedly improper freezing of her checking account. Thus, the issue here is whether Lee has waived her LSA-C.C. Art. 2210(2) rights as well as her constitutional procedural due process rights to "hearing" and "notice" by the signing of the signature card containing the waiver proviso. We answer this affirmatively under the particular facts of this case.
The signature card refers on its face to the written terms on its reverse, and Lee admits to having signed it. The terms, germane to this case, are clear, unambiguous and unequivocal. Lee is presumed to understand these terms and is bound by the waiver she effectuated. Lama v. Manale, 218 La. 511, 50 So.2d 15, 23 A.L.R.2d 1312 (1950); Consumer Money Order Corp. of America v. Kfati, 320 So.2d 251 (La.App.4th Cir., 1975).
Hibernia's action of offset or compensation does not amount .to "state action" but, rather, is private action, and thus is not subject to the procedural due process requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment. See "Post-Sniadach Status of Banker's Right To Set Off Bank's Claim Against Depositor's Funds," 65 A.L.R.3d 1284, which cites Fletcher v. Rhode Island Hospital Trust Nat. Bank, (1974, C.A. 1, R.I.) 496 F.2d 927, cert. den. 419 U.S. 1001, 95 S.Ct. 320, 42 L.Ed.2d 277. Also note Nietzel v. Farmers & Merchants State Bank of Breckenridge, Minn., 238 N.W.2d 437.
When Lee signed the obverse side of the Hibernia Bank signature card on August 20, 1975, she knew that monthly installment payments were already being made by her on a monthly basis to Hibernia covering her automobile loan. That signature card specifically referred on its obverse side to an agreement on the part of the signatory (herself) to be bound by the terms on its reverse side. Those terms set up the bank's right to proceed, without prior notice, as it did here.
Charged with this knowledge, Lee continued to maintain her checking account at the bank. She cannot now be heard to say that her lack of inquiry and/or understanding of her agreement with the bank obviates its effectiveness. Accordingly, the judgment of the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans is affirmed at appellant's cost.
AFFIRMED.