The bank was held to be negligent (depriving it of the protection of section 82) not to ask a customer though respectively introduced the name of his employer and in the case of a married woman the name of her husband’s employer. Whether a bank was negligent or not is to be decided subjectively from the standard of a reasonable man carrying on business of banking and endeavouring to do so in such manner as is calculated to protect itself and its customers against fraud.
Lord Wright said that a bank does not have ‘the duty of being amateur detectives’.
Lord Buckmaster said: ‘These rules and statements are not a legal measure of the liability of a bank. They may fall short, or they may exceed what the court may regard as their duty in a particular case, but they afford a very valuable criterion of obvious risks against which the bank thinks it is their duty to guard.’
Lord Buckmaster, Lord Warrington. Lord Wright
[1933] AC 201, [1932] All ER 105
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Architects of Wine Ltd v Barclays Bank Plc CA 20-Mar-2007
The bank appealed summary judgement against it for conversion of cheques. The cheques had been obtained by a fraud.
Held: The court considered the question of neglience under section 4: ‘The section 4 qualified duty does not require an . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 25 July 2021; Ref: scu.250555
