Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 4.djvu/319

303 THE DOCTRINE OF PRICE v. NEAL. 303 Mansfield proceeded in Price v, Neal, it will be well to consider some analogous cases clearly within his principle, but to which the reasons commonly assigned for the decision in that case are inapplicable. The case of Leather v. Simpson * is especially valuable for our present purpose. The defendant had discounted for the drawer certain bills of exchange, to which bills of lading were attached. The plaintiff, the drawee of the bills of exchange, paid them to the defendant on the faith of the bills of lading. The bills of lading turned out to be forged. The plaintiffs then sought to recover the money as money paid by mistake, but failed. There was, con- fessedly, no actual negligence in the case. No one will assert that the drawer was conclusively presumed to know the captain's signa- ture to the bills of lading. The defendant gave up no rights against prior indorsers, for there were none. The gist of the opinion of Malins, V. C, is thus stated by him: — The equities between these parties are equal; the parties are equally innocent in the transaction; they have all been imposed upon; but there is this difference, that one of them, by the course of the transaction, has been in possession of the money, and I am at a loss to see any ground upon which I can be justified in making a decree that that money should be returned. The Vice-Chancellor in this case, and Lord Denman in the simi- lar case of Robinson v. Reynolds,^ where the drawee was compelled to pay his acceptance, repudiated the drawee's claim that the holder, by presenting the bills of exchange with the bills of lading attached, warranted the genuineness of the latter.^ The decisions in this country accord with Leather v. Simpson and Robinson v, Rey- nolds.* The principle that, when a loss must fall upon one of two in- ^ Baxter v. Chapman, 29 L. T. Rep. 642; Goetz v. Bank, 119 U. S. 551, accord. Young V. Lehman, 63 Ala. 519; First Bank v. Burnham, 32 Mich. 323; Craig v. Sibbett, 15 Pa. 240; Randolph ■:;. Merchants' Bank, 7 Baxt. 456. In the Michigan case, Cooley, J., said: "The best view that can be taken of this case for the plaintiffs below is, that there was a mutual mistake of fact under which the bank discounted and the drawees paid the bill. Conceding this, why should the drawees be allowed to trans- fer the loss to the bank? Usually when one of two parties, equally innocent, must suffer, the law leaves the loss where it has chanced to fall."
 * II Eq. 398. 2 2 Q B j^6
 * Goetz V. Bank, 119 U. S. 551; Hoffman v. Bank of Milwaukee, 12 Wall. 181;