Eyre v. Rondout National Bank

Headnote

Banking — bills, notes and checks —• conversion — deposit of checks payable to corporation to personal account of ‘president thereof — when bank in which checks were deposited, not liable in action for conversion.

Eyre v. Rondout Nat. Bank, 206 App. Div. 806 , affirmed.

Appeal in each of the above-entitled actions from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the third judicial department, entered October 11, 1923, affirming a judgment in favor of defendant entered upon a dismissal of the complaint by the court at a Trial Term without a jury. Between November 6, 1919, and February 2, 1920, ten checks aggregating $93,983.09 payable to the Clearfield County Coal Company, indorsed by Edward G. Murray, as president, were deposited in the defendant bank to the personal credit of

said Murray and thereafter paid out by the defendant upon checks drawn by him upon said account. These actions are brought by the trustee in bankruptcy of said corporation to recover the value of said checks which it was alleged were converted by the defendant bank to the use of said Edward G. Murray. The defendant’s answer was a denial of the allegations in the complaint that the checks were the property of the corporation, and as a separate defense alleged that Murray was sole stockholder and had authority to indorse all commercial paper payable to the company, and, further, that the claims of creditors herein arose subsequent to the acts complained of and that the company was solvent at the time of the commission of such acts.