PNB V.

CA - Acceptance of Checks 25 SCRA 693 FACTS: Lim deposited in his PCIB account a GSIS check drawn against PNB. Following standard banking procedures, the check was sent to petitioner for clearing. He didnt return said check but paid the amount to PCIB as well as debited it against the account of GSIS. Thereafter, a demand was received from GSIS asking for the credit of the amount since the signatures found in the check were forged. This was done by PNB and it now comes after PCIB but the latter wouldnt want to return the money. HELD: Acceptance is not required for checks, for the same are payable on demand. Acceptance and payment are distinguished with each other. The former pertains to a promise to perform an act while the latter is the actual performance of the act. PNB had also been negligent with the particularity that it had been guilty of a greater degree of negligence because it had a previous and formal notice from GSIS that the check had been lost, with the request that payment be stopped. Just as important is that it is its acts, which are the proximate cause of the loss. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------JAI ALAI V. BPI 66 SCRA 29 FACTS: Checks were deposited by petitioner in its current account with the bank. These checks were from a certain Ramirez, a consistent better in its games, who was a sales agent from Inter-Island Gas. Inter-Island later found out that of the forgeries committed in the checks and thus, it informed all the parties concerned. Upon the demands on the bank as the collecting bank, it debited the account of petitioner. Thereafter, petitioner tried to issue a check for payment of shares of stock but such was dishonored for insufficient funds. It filed a complaint against the bank. HELD: Respondent bank acted within legal bounds when it debited the account of petitioner. When the petitioner deposited the checks to its account, the relationship created was one of agency still and not of creditor-debtor. The bank was to collect from the drawees of the checks with the corresponding proceeds. The Bank may have the proceeds already when it debited the account of petitioner. Nonetheless, there is still no creditor-debtor relationship. Following Section 23, a forged signature is wholly inoperative and no right to discharge it or enforce its payment can be acquired through or under the forged signature except against a party who cannot invoke its forgery or want of authority. It stands to reason that as a collecting bank which indorsed the checks to the drawee-banks for clearing, should be liable to the latter for reimbursement for the indorsements on the checks had been forged prior to their delivery to the petitioner. The payments made by the drawee banks to respondent were ineffectivethe creditor-debtor relationship hadnt been validly effected. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PNB V. QUIMPO 158 SCRA 582 FACTS: While Gozon was in the bank with Santos left in the car, the latter stole a check and forged the signature of the former. He was able to encash the check. He was later apprehended by the police authorities and he admitted to stealing the check. The court decided in favor of Gozon. The bank now posed the issue on whether Gozons act of leaving his checkbook in the car the proximate cause of the loss. HELD: Where the private respondents check was removed and stolen without his knowledge and consent, he cannot be considered negligent in this case.