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.