Opinion ID: 1283749
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: proving failure of consideration

Text: Again, this issue as worded by appellants is not accurate in that the cashier's check was never issued and therefore could not be dishonored. WGA had an account with appellee upon which checks could be drawn by appellant Willard W. Given, appellant James B. Given, Robert Larson and Charles Hunter. When an operating agreement between WGA on the one side and Larson and Hunter on the other side was terminated, appellant James B. Given wrote a check, presigned by Willard W. Given, on the account in the amount of $10,324.57 with appellee as payee. He deposited it in a WGA account at the Equality State Bank on August 16, 1982, after scratching out the payee First Wyoming Bank East and writing above it Equality State Bank. When the check was presented to appellee, it refused to honor the check, stamping it refer to maker. On August 20, 1982, appellant James B. Given learned that the check had not been honored and asked appellee for an explanation. He was told that if he again presented the check, appellee would exchange it for a cashier's check. He then secured the check and again presented it to appellee. In the meantime, Hunter and Larson learned of the attempt by Willard W. Given and James B. Given to withdraw the $10,324.57 from the account and requested appellee to stop payment from the account. Appellee refused to do so unless a lawsuit was filed, whereupon Hunter and Larson did file an action against WGA to prevent payment from the account. Appellee filed an interpleader for a court order concerning disposition of the funds in the account; the funds were ultimately distributed pursuant to a settlement of the interpleader petition. Since then an accounting between Willard W. Given and James B. Given on one side and Hunter and Larson on the other side over termination of the operating agreement between them has been accomplished and settled in another lawsuit. Appellants do not contest, on appeal, the district court's holding that appellee's refusal to pay the altered check did not constitute a wrongful dishonor. [4] Rather, in the appeal they contend the court erred in not finding the bank liable for refusal to issue the cashier's check. More specifically, appellants complain that appellee did not sufficiently prove failure of consideration to justify the refusal to issue the cashier's check. When appellee agreed with James B. Given to issue a cashier's check, it was with the obvious expectation that the WGA account would be debited for the amount of the check. When the joint signatories of the account disagreed as to the disposition of the funds in the account, which disagreement resulted in a lawsuit, appellee was placed in the position of potential liability regardless of which of the two alternatives it followed. If it issued the cashier's check and charged the account (making sure that the altered check was returned without payment), Hunter and Larson could contend that appellee acted improperly in the face of their lawsuit, and in the face of their stop-payment order against the check with an altered payee. [5] If it failed to issue the cashier's check, appellants could contend, as they do in this action, that appellee's failure caused damage to them. Appellee did that normally done under such circumstances when it interpleaded the matter in the pending lawsuit. The disposition of the funds in the WGA account under the settlement eliminated the consideration contemplated for the issuance of the cashier's check. There was no other available money for payment of it. Therefore, the consideration for the issuance of the cashier's check as contemplated when appellee agreed to issue it was no longer available. Thus, the refusal to issue the cashier's check was justified. A contract must be supported by consideration to be valid and legally enforceable, 17 C.J.S. Contracts, § 71; Miller v. Miller, Wyo., 664 P.2d 39, 40 (1983). The trial court reached this result in a different fashion, but we can affirm the decision for any proper reason appearing in the record. Valentine v. Ormsbee Exploration Corporation, Wyo., 665 P.2d 452 (1983). The trial court accepted an exception recognized by some courts that, absent estoppel, a bank may stop payment on its cashier's check where it was issued without consideration and where it has its own defense, not that of the customer. The court then concluded that    if a bank may stop payment on a cashier's check under certain circumstances, it could refuse to issue the same after agreeing to do so, when these same circumstances arose. We do not believe it necessary in this case to determine the propriety of stopping payment on a cashier's check which has been issued, leaving that determination for another day and another case. The simple situation in this case is that there was no money available to pay for the cashier's check, and the appellee bank had no obligation to issue it without receiving the contemplated consideration. The uncontradicted evidence established the fact that the money contemplated to be the consideration for issuance of the cashier's check was no longer available. Affirmed.