Page:Henry Osborn Taylor, A Treatise on the Law of Private Corporations (5th ed, 1905).djvu/226

 § 241.] THE LAW OF PRIVATE CORPORATIONS. [CHAP. VII. cannot on behalf of his bank guarantee the performance of a contract by an outsider in which the bank had no interest. 1 And it was held in United States v. City Bank of Columbus 2 that a cashier had no authority to empower a director to con- tract with the secretary of the treasurer for the transportation of moneys belonging to the United States, and consequently that the bank was not liable to reimburse money delivered by the secretary to the director in pursuance of such contract. Giv- ing the opinion of the court, Justice Wayne said : " In the case of Bank of the United States v. Dunn (6 Pet. 51) the court would not permit the president and cashier of the bank to bind it by their agreement with the indorser of a promissory note that he should not be liable on his indorsement. It said it is not the duty of the cashier and president to make such con- tracts, nor have they power to bind the bank except in the dis- charge of their ordinary duties. All discounts are made under the authority of the directors, and it is for them to fix any con- ditions which they may think proper in loaning money. The court defines the cashier of a bank to be an executive officer, by whom its debts are received and paid, and its securities taken and transferred, and that his acts, to be binding upon a bank, must be done within the ordinary course of his duties. His ordinary duties are to keep all the funds of the bank, its notes, bills, and other choses in action, to be used from time to time for the ordinary and extraordinary exigencies of the bank. He usually receives directly, or through the subordinate officers of the bank, all moneys and notes of the bank, delivers up all dis- counted notes and other securities when they have been paid, draws checks to withdraw the funds of the bank when they have been deposited, and, as the executive officer of the bank, transacts most of its business. " The term ordinary business with direct reference to the duties of cashiers of banks occurs frequently in English cases, and in the reports of the decisions of our state courts, and in no one of them has it been judicially allowed to comprehend a contract made by a cashier, without an express delegation of A cashier cannot certify his own I x Norton v. Derby Nat. Bank, 61 check. Lee v. Smith, 84 Mo. 304. N. H. 589. Compare People's Bank v. Nat. Bank, 2 21 How. 356. 101 U. S. 181; §239. ' 206