Greenwood v Martins Bank Ltd
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | Lord Tomlin |
| Judgment Date | 05 July 1932 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1932] UKHL J0705-1 |
| Date | 05 July 1932 |
| Court | House of Lords |
[1932] UKHL J0705-1
Lord Atkin.
Lord Warrington of Clyffe.
Lord Tomlin.
Lord Thankerton.
Lord Macmillan.
House of Lords
After hearing Counsel, as well on Thursday the 2d, as on Friday the 3d and Monday the 6th, days of June last, upon the Petition and Appeal of Bertie Greenwood, Pauper, of 119, Vicarage Lane, Marton, Blackpool, in the County of Lancaster, praying, That the matter of the Order set forth in the Schedule thereto, namely an Order of His Majesty's Court of Appeal, of the 29th of July, 1931, might be reviewed before His Majesty the King, in His Court of Parliament, and that the said Order might be reversed, varied or altered, or that the Petitioner might have such other relief in the premises as to His Majesty the King, in His Court of Parliament, might seem meet; as also upon the printed Case of Martins Bank, Limited, lodged in answer to the said Appeal; and due consideration had this day of what was offered on either side in this Cause:
It is Ordered and Adjudged, by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in the Court of Parliament of His Majesty the King assembled, That the said Order of His Majesty's Court of Appeal, of the 29th day of July 1931, complained of in the said Appeal, be, and the same is hereby, Affirmed, and that the said Petition and Appeal be, and the same is hereby, dismissed this House.
My Lords,
On the 6th March, 1926, the Appellant, who was carrying on a dairyman's business at Blackpool, opened with the Respondents at their branch in Clifton Street, Blackpool, a joint account in the name of himself and his wife. It was arranged with the Respondents that cheques on this account should bear the signatures both of the Appellant and of his wife.
On the 8th November, 1928, the Appellant opened a further banking account in his own name at the same branch of the Respondents's bank. Cheques upon this account were to bear the signature of the Appellant alone.
The pass-books and cheque-books in respect of these accounts were kept by the Appellant's wife, who gave her husband a cheque from the cheque-book when he asked for it.
In October, 1929, the Appellant asked his wife to bring him a cheque, saying that he wanted to draw £20 from his separate account with the Respondents, whereupon the Appellant's wife informed the Appellant that there was no money in the bank and told him that she had used the money to help her sister in legal proceedings relating to a house and had drawn it out. The Appellant thereupon asked her who had forged his name and she would not tell him. She begged the Appellant not to inform the Respondents of the forgeries until her sister's case was over. In the hope of a favourable result to the sister's action and for his wife's sake the Appellant said nothing to the Respondents.
On the 5th June, 1930, the Appellant discovered that there were no legal proceedings instituted by his wife's sister and that his wife had deceived him. Thereupon the Appellant informed his wife that he would go at once to the Respondents. He returned to the house that evening without having gone to the Bank. On his return his wife shot herself.
After his wife's death the Appellant ascertained that he had been debited by the Respondents in his separate account with the sum of £410 6s. in respect of forged cheques.
At this time the Appellant was not aware that anything irregular had occurred in connection with the joint account of himself and his wife.
On the 19th August, 1930, the Appellant began an action against the Respondents in the King's Bench Division, Preston District, for a declaration that he was entitled to be credited by the Respondents with the sum of £410 6s. with which he alleged they had wrongfully debited him.
In their defence the Respondents denied the forgeries and alternatively pleaded that they were caused to pay the money by reason of the Appellant's own negligence and, further, that he was estopped from saying that the Respondents paid the money wrongfully or without his authority or that the signatures on the cheques were placed there without his authority. At the trial ratification, adoption and estoppel were all relied upon by the Respondents.
The action was tried at the Manchester Assizes on the 12th May, 1931, before Mr. Commissioner du Parcq, K.C. (now Mr. Justice du Parcq), and in the course of the trial the following facts with regard to the separate account were admitted or proved, namely:—
(1) Between the 14th November, 1928, and the 20th October, 1929, the Appellant's wife, Emma Greenwood, drew forty-four "order" cheques upon the Appellant's separate banking account and forged the name of the Appellant as drawer of the said cheques. The value in the aggregate of such cheques was the sum of £410 6s. Forty-two of such cheques were expressed to be in favour of a non-existent person, Emily Greenwood, and in the remaining two of them, dated respectively the 14th January, 1929, and the 16th May, 1929, the name of the Payee inserted was "Emma Greenwood". The cheques purported to be endorsed by the drawees but by whom the endorsements were made was not proved.
(2) The forged cheques were presented for payment and through the...
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