California Pacific Title & Trust Co. v. Crocker First National Bank

Plaintiff brought this action to recover the sum of $12,559.25, alleged to have been the balance due to plaintiff as a depositor in the defendant bank. The cause was tried by the court sitting without a jury and from a judgment in favor of plaintiff defendant appeals.

The defendant bank came into being as the result of a consolidation and the name of the plaintiff corporation was changed during the time referred to herein but neither the consolidation nor the change of name is material here, so we may simply refer to the institutions involved as plaintiff and defendant. In 1922, plaintiff issued a check on the defendant bank in said sum of $12,559.25 payable to “Mary Baldwin Wood, Extrx., and Baldwin Wood, Extr., of the estate of William Sidney Wood, dec’d.” It is this check which is the center of controversy. Said check was indorsed by Baldwin Wood by signing the names of both payees in the same manner as said names appeared upon the check and he thereafter deposited the same in an account carried in the American National Bank in the name of “Estate William S. Wood, Deceased.” This estate account was a very active account, the funds in which were subject to withdrawal upon the…