Suffell v Bank of England
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Year | 1881 |
| Date | 1881 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
Bank of England - Action on Note - Erasure of Number - Material Alteration.
In an action against the Bank of England for non-payment of notes payable to bearer issued by them, it appeared that the notes had been bonâ fide purchased by the plaintiff for value, but that they had been fraudulently obtained by the person from whom he purchased them, and that before they were in the custody of the plaintiff they had been altered, by erasing the numbers upon them and substituting others, with the object of preventing the notes from being traced:—
Held, by Lord Coleridge, C.J., that the alteration was not material in the sense of affecting the plaintiff's right of action on the notes, and that the defendants were liable.
ACTION by the plaintiff as the holder of Bank of England notes, ten of 20l. each and six of 50l. each, alleging that payment had been demanded of the defendants and refused.
At the trial before Lord Coleridge, C.J., at the Guildhall sittings in April, 1881, it appeared that the plaintiff, a banker and money-changer of Brussels, had bonâ fide and for value purchased the notes in question, but that they had been fraudulently obtained by the person from whom he received them. Payment of the notes had been stopped at the bank, and a notice issued specifying their numbers. It further appeared that when the plaintiff received the notes the numbers of some of them had been erased and other numbers substituted.
The jury having been discharged, the cause was reserved for further consideration, and was argued by
W. G. Harrison, Q.C., H. D. Jencken, and C. H. Anderson, for the plaintiff.
Sir J. Holker, Q.C., A. Cohen, Q.C., and H. D. Greene, for the defendants.
July 4. LORD COLERIDGE, C.J. The short question in the case is whether the defendants can refuse to pay on some bank notes, undoubtedly issued by them, and which have come into the hands of the plaintiff as a bonâ fide purchaser of them for value without notice, upon the single ground that one of the figures in the numbers of the notes has been altered, no doubt fraudulently, and for the purpose, if possible, of preventing the notes from being traced. Other notes were procured from Payne, Smith, & Co., the bankers in London, by a forged cheque; these notes were changed at the Bank of England for the notes sued upon in this action, which notes were bought by the plaintiff, a...
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Raiffeisen Zentralbank Osterreich AG v Cross-seas Shipping Ltd and Others
...Limited [1991] 1 WLR 271 at 274 per Dillon LJ. He then referred to the rationale underlying the rule as stated by Jessel MR in Suffell -v- Bank of England (1882) 9 QBD 555 at 561, quoting with approval from the judgment of Grose J in Master -v- Miller (1791) 4 T.R. 320: "� a man shall not t......
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Habibsons Bank Ltd v Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Ltd
...later. The court held that the attachment of the schedule altered the deed in a material particular and rendered it void. 30 In Suffell v Bank of England (1882) 9 Q.B.D. 555 the question arose whether the alteration of serial numbers on a banknote issued by the Bank of England was sufficien......
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