« Ind. Courts - Reports on bills of interest to the Judiciary that were discussed last week | Main | Ind. Decisions - Court of Appeals issues 0 today (and 7 NFP) »
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Ind. Decisions - Supreme Court decides case involving UCC 405
In Auto-Owners Insurance Company v. Bank One, a 12-page, 3-2 opinion, Justice Sullivan writes:
Kenneth B. Wulf stole more than $500,000 from his employer, Auto-Owners Insurance Company, by depositing checks payable to Auto-Owners into a personal account he opened at Bank One in the name of “Auto-Owners, Kenneth B. Wulf.” Auto-Owners contends that Bank One violated § 405 of the Indiana Uniform Commercial Code by not exercising ordinary care when it opened Wulf’s account. However, we hold that § 405 applies to opening new accounts only in circumstances not present here. * * *Shepard, C.J., and Rucker, J., concur.
Boehm, J., dissents in part with separate opinion in which Dickson, J., concurs. [The dissent begins] I agree with the majority that the statute of limitations bars much of Auto-Owners’s claim against Bank One. I also agree that the principal issues presented by Auto-Owners’s claim under the Uniform Commercial Code are (1) whether the bank failed to exercise ordinary care in ac-cepting Wulf’s checks, and (2) if so, the extent to which that failure contributed to Auto-Owners’s loss. I do not agree that Bank One is entitled to summary judgment because I believe both questions present issues of fact that are not resolvable on summary judgment.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 5, 2008 01:07 PM
Posted to Ind. Sup.Ct. Decisions