Court Opinion

ID: 9534303
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:38:30.066131+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:30:10.706793
License: Public Domain

CALLISTER, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent from solely one aspect of the majority opinion, namely, the section thereof that states that the “Bank of Salt Lake, having failed to obtain the endorsement of both payees is likewise liable to Pacific Metals on the check.”
There are two alternative remedies presented to a payee, when a check is cashed without his endorsement.
* * * Since the check was never delivered to the payee and was not negotiated by him, it could not be legally binding and thus the debt owed by the drawer to the payee continues outstanding. The drawer can demand that the drawee credit his account and the drawee in turn can demand that the collecting bank reimburse it. See American National Bank of Denver v. First National Bank, 130 Colo. 557, 277 P.2d 951. The payee has another remedy. He can sue the collecting bank directly. The legal effect of his doing this constitutes adoption and ratification of the collection and payment of the check (notwithstanding that it was not endorsed). (We consider the legal consequence of no endorsement to be the same as a forgery, at least for the present purpose. See American National Bank v. First National Bank, supra.) 1
The rationale of the foregoing principle is as follows: The plaintiff, payee, may ratify the collection of the check for him; in such case he ratifies the assumed payment of it, and the check is then paid; the drawee bank and the maker thereof are both released from paying it over again; the payee would be estopped from making such claim. The ratification is not upon the acceptance alone of the check by the drawee bank, but upon its collection by the “cashing” bank and payment by the drawee bank, all of which are ratified by the payee and the suit is then against the collecting bank as for moneys had and received.
In the instant action, the judgment in favor of the payee against the collecting bank constituted an adoption and ratification by the payee of the collection and payment of the check with a consequent release of the drawer and drawee bank.
HENRIOD, J., concurs in the dissenting opinion of CALLISTER, J.

. Denver Elec. & Neon Serv. Corp. v. Gerald H. Phipps, Inc., 143 Colo. 530, 354 P.2d 618, 623 (1960).