Court Opinion

ID: 9827956
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:57:44.631217+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:40.149386
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[3-5] In its motion for a rehearing the appellant insists that the evidence was sufficient to raise the issue of negligence on the part of the bank officials in failing to detect the forgery of the bills of lading. The bills of lading *949were issued, or purported to be, to the A. B. Crouch Grain Company, and were by it assigned to the bank as security for the draft drawn on the appellant. The bank was not therefore a guarantor of the signatures attached to the bills of lading. In this suit it devolves upon the appellant to show that the bank, in accepting and forwarding the bills of lading, was guilty of that degree of negligence in failing to detect the forgery as would make it legally responsible for the loss which resulted therefrom. The record shows that at the time of this transaction the commercial standing of the A. B. Crouch Grain Company was good; it had done an extensive business in buying and selling grain, and many transactions of a similar nature had been conducted through the bank; and up to that time nothing had occurred to arouse suspicion of fraud or dishonesty in the dealings of the A. B. Crouch Grain Company. There was no evidence that the bank official who accepted those bills of lading knew the signature of the railway agent whose name had been forged. The evidence shows further that the signature of the agent was frequently signed by a subordinate employé. The presentation of the bills of lading by the A. B. Crouch Grain Company was in effect a representation to the bank that they were genuine and bore the signature of one authorized to issue them. To hold that the bank official was guilty of negligence in failing to question the truth of that representation, made by a respectable patron, and to push his inquiries still further is, we think, requiring a greater degree of diligence than that exacted by law. There was nothing in the bills of lading or in the transaction that was calculated to create suspicion of dishonesty. We therefore adhere to .our original conclusion that the evidence was insufficient to present an issue of negligence, and the motion is overruled.