Inner Office Memo Editing and Enhancing Inneroffice

Inner Office Memo Editing and Enhancing

Inneroffice Memorandum

Mrs. Alexander, Senior Partner

FROM: Brandon Lee, Junior Counsel

RE: Mrs. Alexander Denise - Galactica National Bank, Et. al.

Fact Summary:

Miss Alexis Denise had bank accounts with Gallactica National Bank. In July of 2011, she discovered that she was missing a check. In order to protect her account and inform the bank of the missing check, she requested, and the bank agreed to place a stop payment on the check. The bank, did not honor this request and as a result the check was fraudulently used by Whitney Spears. The check cleared the bank resulting in $50,000 missing from Miss Denise's account. As the result of the missing funds, multiple checks written by Miss Denise were dishonored for insufficient funds leading to hostile collection calls from the Gimme Finacial Credit Card Company and a repossession that ended with a melee and Miss Denise being arrested by the Birmingham police under the city's breach of peace ordinance. Miss Denise sorted everything out with her bank account and the police agree to not press any charges. Miss Denise is now interested in determining any civil or criminal actions that can be taken.

Was there a valid contract between Galactica National Bank and Mrs. Denise ?:

This issue is whether the bank's waiving of the stop check fee invalidated the bank's responsibility to place a stop payment on the check. As stated in the 2nd Restatement of Contract Law section 72, in order for a contract to be valid there must be payment made for service rendered. While this is standard for an arm's length contract, Miss Denise had an existing business relationship with the bank, her accounts. Under this relationship, the bank has an obligation to protect her funds and make them readily available for use in exchange for the bank's benefit of holding onto the funds. While the bank did waive the stop check fee, that was an act of courtesy within the business, not an attempt to invalidate the agreement. Thus, there is still a valid contract and the bank is still under obligation to place a stop payment on the check.

Negligence on the part of Galactica National Bank:

This next issue is whether the bank acted negligently in failing to follow through with the stop payment on the check. Under Alabama law a party is negligent when four criteria are met: (1) Existence of a duty on the part of the defendant, (2) the defendant's breach of that duty, (3) existence of a causal relationship between the defendant's conduct and the plaintiff's injuries, (4) resulting injury to the plaintiff.

Under Alabama tort law a duty must exist between two parties. Duty is any responsibility of care, whether it be contractual or implied. As established above, banks have a contractual duty to safeguard their customer's funds. Under Alabama law Section 7-4-402, "Except as otherwise provided in this article, a payor bank wrongfully dishonors an item if it dishonors an item that is properly payable, but a bank may dishonor an item that would create an overdraft unless it has agreed to pay the overdraft."

Here, the bank had a duty to file a stop payment on the missing check to prevent any fraudulent action on the account.

Breach

A duty is breached when the party fails to fullfill their obligation to the injured party. In this case, the bank was under obligation to file the stop payment documents on the check. Failure to complete this filing after specifically agreeing to do so was a direct breech of the bank's duty.

Causation

In order for the bank to be liable for Miss Denise's damages, there must be a causal link between the breach and the resulting damages. Here, the failure of the bank to file the stop check resulted in the check being fraudulently used. This direct causation links the negligent act to the harm done.

Damages

A client must suffer physical or monetary damages from the negligence. Here, the client suffered multiple damages these include damage to her credit rating and liability for all bounced checks, the fines that go with such liability, and emotional harm from the harassing creditor calls.