Bell v. German American Trust & Savings Bank

This appeal is by the defendant from a money judgment against it for $2,655.76 and costs. The facts, briefly stated, as found by the court, as shown by the evidence, and as substantially conceded by appellant in its opening brief, are as follows:

The liability of the bank in this action depends upon two conditions: First, the beneficial ownership of the note in question by the plaintiff; and, second, notice to the bank at the time it accepted the note for collection from plaintiff’s attorney, or at least before it parted with the money collected, that the plaintiff claimed such ownership.

[1] That the plaintiff owned the note, and that it was made payable to his sister, Mary A. Bell, as his trustee only, was established by testimony of plaintiff and his attorney on the trial, as well as by the judgment-roll (admitted in evidence) in the case of Bell v. Bell—an action brought by the plaintiff here against his sister and the defendant bank to determine the ownership of the note and of the moneys collected thereon. The judgment in that action decreed that the respondent here owned the note, that Mary A. Bell was merely named as a trustee, and that the defendant bank surrender the…