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Bills and Notes. Banking — Payment of Check without Knowledge of Drawer's Death — Principal and Agent — Third Parties Acting in Good Faith. N. Y. A bank is protected in the payment by it of a check after the death of the drawer, payment having been made in the due course of business and without knowledge on the part of the bank of the drawer's death when it paid the check. This was the holding of the New York Court of Appeals in Glennan v. Trust Co., decided June 3 (N. Y. Law Jour., June 20). In an opinion of unusual interest the Court (Cullen, Ch. J.) said: — "It is singular that there should be such a paucity of judicial decisions on this question, as seems the case. In my search through the reports I have been able to find only one on the precise point, Rogerson, executor, v. Ladbroke, decided by the English Common Pleas in 1822 (1 Bing. 93), in which it was held that the pay ment or rather a charge of a check to a depositor's account made by the banker after the death of the depositor, but before the bank had re ceived knowledge of that fact, was a valid payment, and that the banker was not liable for the amount." Referring to the common law rule that an agent's power is revoked by the death of the principal, the Court continued : — "The question is whether payment of checks by banks or bankers is an exception to the rule stated. I think it is. It must be first borne in mind that the rule itself is an exception to the still broader rule that revocation of the power of an agent docs not affect third parties dealing with him in good faith without notice. This is the rule of the civil law even where the agency is revoked by death. The common-law rule in some states has been changed by statute, in others repudiated (Cassidy v. McKenzie, 4 Watts & Sergeant, Penna., 282; Carragher v. Whittington, 26 Mo. 311), while in still others greatly limited (Lenz v. Brown, 41 Wis. 172; Ish v. Crane, 8 Ohio St. 521). There are differences between the liability of banks to their depositors and that of ordinary debtors to their creditors which justifies excepting the payment of checks from the rule. . . .
Cases
"But the dominant and controlling reason for holding that the usual rule that a debtor is not protected in payment to an agent after the death of his principal, though without knowl edge of that fact, is not applicable to the pay ment of checks by banks, is that such has almost universally been accepted as the law. As already said, all the text-books so state the law (in England it has been so settled by section 75 of the Bills of Exchange Act of 1882), and appar ently the whole country has assumed the text books to be right. The rule thus adopted, if not strictly a rule of property, is a rule of conduct affecting property interests that very closely approximates to a rule of property. I think the fact that the rule has been adopted by the community is reasonably clear. The use of banks as depositories of money and the prac tice of making payment by checks prevails in this country to an extent far beyond that exist ing in any other, so that the situation presented in this case must have frequently arisen. True, where the estate of the depositor is solvent and the check is given for value it is of no practical moment whether the bank is liable for the pay ment of a check after the death of the drawer or not. Very many, however, must have been the cases where either the estate was insolvent or the check was given without value and the bank had paid it after death in ignorance of that fact. Yet in my research I have not been able to find in the reports in this country or in England a case where it was sought, under such circumstances, to hold the bank liable except the Rogerson case (supra), in which the attempt failed." Contempt. Publication Reflecting on the Court — Irregular Proceedings Resulting in Find ing of Contempt. Mo. The Missouri Supreme Court discharged Col. William R. Nelson, owner and editor of the Kansas City Star, on June 2, in the proceedings for contempt of the Jackson County Circuit Court. The decision of the Supreme Court was unanimous. Col. Nelson was found guilty of contempt and sentenced to imprisonment of one day in the County Jail by Circuit Judge Joseph G. Guthrie of Jackson County on Feb. 1. The
