Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., American Bank Trust Company v. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Ga…
“ If without a word of falsehood but acting from what we have called disinterested malevolence a man by persuasion should organize and carry into effect a run upon a bank and ruin it, we cannot doubt that an action would lie. ”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., American Bank Trust Company v. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Ga…
“ Most rights are qualified. A man has at least as absolute a right to give his own money as he has to demand money from a party that has made no promise to him; yet if he gives it to induce another to steal or murder the purpose of the act makes it a crime.A bank that receives deposits to be drawn upon by check of course authorizes its depositors to draw checks against their accounts and holders of such checks to present them for payment. When we think of the ordinary case the right of the holder is so unimpeded that it seems to us absolute. ”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., American Bank Trust Company v. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Ga…
“ We lay on one side as not necessary to our decision the question of the defendants' powers, and assuming that they act within them consider only whether the use that according to the bill they intend to make of them will infringe the plaintiffs' rights. The defendants say that the holder of a check has a right to present it to the bank upon which it was drawn for payment over the counter, and that however many checks he may hold he has the same right as to all of them and may present them all at once, whatever his motive or intent. ”
