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These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.  














Banking - From: 1900 To: 1929

This page lists 34 cases, and was prepared on 03 April 2018.

 
Mutton v Peat [1900] 2 Ch 79
1900
CA
Lindley MR
Banking
Held: The appeal succeeded. A bank's customer has a right in general to call on the bank to combine his accounts.
1 Cites


 
In re Shields' Estate, Bank of Ireland (Governor and Co.), Petitioners [1901] 1 IR 172
1901

Fitzgibbon LJ
Banking
The court considered whether the maintenance of current accounts was essential before a business could be considered to be a bank.
1 Citers


 
Hirst v West Riding Banking Co [1901] 2 KB 560
1901
CA

Banking
The representation on which the claim made was was in a letter signed by the branch manager of the defendant bank and the court evidently assumed that this could not be equated with the bank's own signature. Held: The action against the bank was not maintainable. The word "person" in section 6 includes a company.
Statute of Frauds Amendment Act 1828 6
1 Citers


 
In re Yorkshire Woolcombers Association Ltd [1903] 2 Ch 284
1903
ChD
Farwell J
Banking, Company
Farwell J said: "A charge on all book debts which may now be, or at any time hereafter become charged or assigned, leaving the mortgagor or assignor free to deal with them as he pleases until the mortgagee or assignee intervenes, is not a specific charge, and cannot be. The very essence of a specific charge is that the assignee takes possession, and is the person entitled to receive the book debts at once. So long as he licenses the mortgagor to go on receiving the book debts and carry on the business, it is within the exact definition of a floating security."
1 Citers


 
In re Yorkshire Woolcombers Association Ltd [1903] 2 Ch 295
2 Jan 1903
CA
Romer LJ, Vaughan Williams LJ
Company, Banking
The court considered the nature of a debenture charge. Romer LJ: "I certainly do not intend to attempt to give an exact definition of the term 'floating charge', nor am I prepared to say that there will not be a floating charge within the meaning of the Act, which does not contain all the three characteristics …". "I certainly think that if a charge has the three characteristics that I am about to mention it is a floating charge. (1) If it is a charge on a class of assets of a company present and future; (2) if that class is one which, in the ordinary course of business of the company, would be changing from time to time; and (3) if you find that by the charge it is contemplated that, until some future step is taken by or on behalf of those interested in the charge, the company may carry on its business in the ordinary way as far as concerns the particular class of assets I am dealing with." and (Vaughan Williams LJ) "… what you do require to make a specific security is that the security whenever it has once come into existence, and been identified or appropriated as a security, shall never thereafter at the will of the mortgagor cease to be a security."
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Illingworth v Houldsworth [1904] AC 355
1904
HL
Halsbury, Macnaghten LL
Banking, Company
A clause in a floating charge allowing a company to continue to trade in the assets charged: "contemplates not only that it should carry with it the book debts which were then existing, but it contemplates also the possibility of those book debts being extinguished by payment to the company, and that other book debts should come in and take the place of those that had disappeared. That, my Lords, seems to me to be an essential characteristic of what is properly called a floating security. The recitals . . shew an intention on the part of both parties that the business of the company shall continue to be carried on in the ordinary way - that the book debts shall be at the command of, and for the purpose of being used by, the company. Of course, if there was an absolute assignment of them which fixed the property in them, the company would have no right to touch them at all. The minute after the execution of such an assignment they would have no more interest in them, and would not be allowed to touch them, whereas as a matter of fact it seems to me that the whole purport of this instrument is to enable the company to carry on its business in the ordinary way, to receive the book debts that were due to them, to incur new debts, and to carry on their business exactly as if this deed had not been executed at all. That is what we mean by a floating security." A floating charge: "A specific charge, I think, is one that without more fastens on ascertained and definite property or property capable of being ascertained and defined; a floating charge, on the other hand, is ambulatory and shifting in its nature, hovering over and so to speak floating with the property which it is intended to affect until some event occurs or some act is done which causes it to settle and fasten on the subject of the charge within its reach and grasp." (Lord Macnaghten)
1 Cites

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Martin v Nadel [1906] 2 KB 26
1906
CA
Stirling LJ, Vaughan Williams LJ
Banking, Jurisdiction, Litigation Practice
A garnishee order was sought in England against the London branch of a German bank to attach a balance owed to the judgment debtor by the Berlin branch of the bank. Held: A garnishee order is of the nature of an execution, and is governed by the lex fori; and by international law an execution which has been carried into effect in a foreign country under foreign law, and has taken away part of a man's property, is not recognised as binding. Under the rules of international law the Bank could not set up, in an action in Berlin, the execution levied in this country in respect to this debt. If we consider the converse case it is clear that we should take that view of a similar transaction occurring abroad. An absolute order was refused because the garnishee bank was at risk of having to pay twice and the making of an order in such circumstances was "inequitable" and "contrary to natural justice". "On the facts of this case the debt of the bank to Nadel would be properly recoverable in Germany. That being so, it must be taken that the order of this Court would not protect the bank from being called on to pay the debt a second time."
1 Cites

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Marreco v Richardson (1908) 2 KB 584
1908
CA
Farwell LJ
Banking
The giving of a cheque for a debt is payment conditional on the cheque being met, that is, subject to a condition subsequent, and if the cheque is met it is an actual payment ab initio and not a conditional one.
1 Citers


 
Henderson and Co Ltd v Turnbull and Co 1909 SC 510
1909

Lord Low
Scotland, Banking
In Scots law the debtor will be able to plead a defence of compensation, as the amount of his damages claim against the creditor may readily be measured by the creditor's claim against him and any deposit.


 
 Parsons v Barclay and Co Ltd and Goddard; CA 1910 - (1910) 103 LT 196; [1908-10] All ER Rep 429; [1910] 26 TLR 628

 
 Kirkwood v Gadd; HL 1910 - [1910] AC 422

 
 Evans v Rival Granite Quarries Ltd; CA 1910 - [1910] 2 KB 979

 
 Bank of Montreal v Stuart; PC 1911 - [1911] AC 120
 
Stoddart v Union Trust Ltd [1912] 1 KB 181
1912
CA

Banking

1 Citers



 
 Kerrison v Glyn, Mills, Currie and Co; HL 1912 - (1912) 81 LJKB 465

 
 Ladbroke and Co v Todd; 1914 - (1914) 30 TLR 433; (1914) 111 LT 43
 
State Savings Bank of Victoria Comissioners v Permewan Wright and Co Ltd (1915) 19 CLR 457
1915


Banking, Commonwealth
To be held to be a banker in law, it was not necessary for a company to open current accounts.
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
Robinson v National Bank of Scotland [1916] SC (HL) 154; [1916] UKHL 4; 1916 1 SLT 336
10 Apr 1916
HL
Lord Haldane, Earl Loreburn
Scotland, Negligence, Torts - Other, Banking
The pursuer claimed for false and fraudulent misrepresentation againt his bankers. Held: A duty of care is not only owed in cases of fiduciary relationship in the narrow sense of relationships which had been recognised by the court of Chancery as being of a fiduciary character. There are other special relationships.
1 Cites

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[ Bailii ]
 
Evans v London and Provincial Bank (1917) 3 LDAB 152
1917


Banking, Damages
Only nominal damages were awarded by a jury for damage to the plaintiff's reputation after his bank had wrongly failed to pay on his cheque.
1 Citers



 
 Edgelow v MacElwee; 1918 - [1918] 1 KB 205

 
 Banbury v Bank of Montreal; PC 1918 - [1918-19] All ER Rep 1; [1918] AC 626; 87 LJKB 1158; 119 LT 446; 36 Digest (Rep 1) 14

 
 Cornelius v Phillips; HL 1918 - [1918] AC 199
 
Ross v London County Westminster and Parr's Bank [1919] 1 KB 678
1919

Bailhache J
Banking
Bailhache J considered the standards to be expected of a bank clerk: "I must attribute to the cashiers and clerks of the defendants the degree of intelligence and care ordinarily required of persons in their position to fit them for the discharge of their duties. It is therefore necessary to consider whether a bank cashier of ordinary intelligence and care on having these cheques presented to him by a private customer of the bank would be informed by the terms of the cheques themselves that it was open to doubt whether the customer had a good title to them."
1 Citers



 
 Wilson v United Counties Bank Ltd; HL 1920 - [1918-19] All ER Rep1035; [1920] LR AC 102; [1920] AC 102
 
Commissioners of State Savings Bank v Permewan, Wright and Co 19 CLR 457
1920

Isaacs J
Commonwealth, Banking
(Year?) (High Court of Australia) The court considered the nature of negligence in a banker: "the test of negligence is whether the transaction of paying in any given cheque [coupled with the circumstances antecedent and present] was so out of the ordinary course that it ought to have aroused doubts in the bankers' mind, and caused them to make inquiry."
1 Citers


 
Commissioners of Taxation v English, Scottish and Australian Bank Limited [1920] AC 683
2 Jan 1920
PC
Lord Dunedin
Commonwealth, Banking, Professional Negligence
The Board considered what would amount to negligence in a bank. Held: The test in Permewan was to be applied by "the standard to be derived from the ordinary practice of bankers, not individuals." A customer of the bank is a person who has a more permanent relationship with the bank, for instance, having an existing account with the bank. Habit or continued dealings will not make a party a customer unless there is an account in his name. Thus a person who had opened an account on the day before paying in a cheque was a customer of the bank within the meaning of s 88(1) of the 1909 Act: "The contrast is not between an habitue and a newcomer, but between a person for whom the bank performs a casual service, such as, for instance, cashing a cheque for a person introduced by one of their customers, and a person who has an account of his own at the bank."
A negligence in collection is not a question of negligence in opening an account, though the circumstances connected with the opening of an account may shed light on the question whether there was negligence in collecting a cheque.
Bills of Exchange Act 1909 88(1)
1 Cites

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Joachimson v Swiss Bank Corporation [1921] 3 KB 110; [1921] 37 TLR 534
1921
CA
Atkin LJ
Litigation Practice, Banking
The service of the order nisi binds the debt in the hands of the garnishee - that is, it creates a charge in favour of the judgment creditor. No cause of action for non payment arises in respect of money standing on a current account until the customer demands payment by the bank. The court set out the legal characteristics of a bank account.
1 Citers



 
 A L Underwood Ltd v Bank of Liverpool and Martins; CA 1924 - [1924] 1 KB 775

 
 Tournier v National Provincial and Union Bank of England; CA 1924 - [1924] 1 KB 461; [1923] All ER Rep 550; 130 LT 682

 
 Bank of Victoria Ltd v Mueller; 1925 - [1925] VLR 642

 
 Westminster Bank Ltd v Hilton; HL 1926 - (1926) 43 TLR 124

 
 R E Jones Ltd v Waring and Gillow Ltd; HL 1926 - [1926] AC 670

 
 CB Liggett (Liverpool) Limited v Barclays Bank Limited; 1928 - [1928] 1 KB 48
 
Lloyds Bank Limited v The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China [1929] 1 KB 40
1929
CA
Scrutton LJ, Sankey LJ
Banking
Sankey LJ said: "a bank cannot be held to be liable for negligence merely because they have not subjected an account to a microscopic examination. It is not to be expected that the officials of banks should also be amateur detectives."
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