Court Opinion

ID: 6739624
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-20 23:20:56.418756+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:01:55.125090
License: Public Domain

Grace, J.
(specially concurring). The plaintiff for many years had transacted business with the bank. He reposed every confidence in it. *195He had implicit faith in the integrity of it and its officials. He was transacting business with the bank as such, and not with the officials individually. In the transaction here under consideration he was deceived and defrauded; his money was invested in a worthless security. He was led to do this through the wrongful acts, misrepresentation, and deception of one of the principal officials of the bank. In such circumstances the bank should not be permitted to escape liability.
Though the facts were somewhat different in the case of Keith v. First National Bank, 36 N. D. 315, 162 N. W. 961, L. R. A. 1917E, 901, it was there held, in substance, that, where the officer of a bank transacts business with customers, which business the bank is authorized to do, or which is incidental to its ordinary' and regular business, and in the course of the transactions violates the trust relations between the bank and the customer, the bank was liable for any damages thereby suffered by the customer.
The same principle is applicable to the case at bar, and, in reality, is the principle invoked in the main opinion.