Gempesaw v. Court Of Appeals G.R. No. 92244 February 9, 1993.

FACTS ISSUE RULING

No. Gempesaw cannot set up the
defense of forgery by reason of her
negligence. As a rule, a drawee bank,
in this case the Philippine Bank of
Natividad Gempesaw is a
Communications, who has paid a
businesswoman who entrusted to
check on which an indorsement has
her bookkeeper, Alicia Galang, the
been forged cannot charge the
preparation of checks about to be
Whether or not the drawer’s account for the amount of
issued in the course of her business
bank should refund said check. An exception to this rule is
transactions. From 1984 to 1986, 82
the money lost by where the drawer is guilty of such
checks amounting to P1,208,606.89,
reason of the negligence which causes the bank to
were prepared and were supposed
forged honor such a check or checks. If a
to be delivered to Gempesaw’s
indorsements. check is stolen from the payee, it is
clients as payees named thereon.
quite obvious that the drawer cannot
However, through Galang, these
possibly discover the forged
checks were never delivered to the
indorsement by mere examination of
supposed payees. Instead, the
his cancelled check. A different
checks were fraudulently indorsed
situation arises where the
to Alfredo Romero and Benito Lam.
indorsement was forged by an
employee or agent of the drawer, or
done with the active participation of
the latter.