§ 28:4-303. When items subject to notice, stop-payment order, legal process, or setoff; order in which items may be charged or certified.

UNIFORM COMMERCIAL CODE COMMENT

1. While a payor bank is processing an item presented for payment, it may receive knowledge or a legal notice affecting the item, such as knowledge or a notice that the drawer has filed a petition in bankruptcy or made an assignment for the benefit of creditors; may receive an order of the drawer stopping payment on the item; may have served on it an attachment of the account of the drawer; or the bank itself may exercise a right of setoff against the drawer's account. Each of these events affects the account of the drawer and may eliminate or freeze all or part of whatever balance is available to pay the item. Subsection (a) states the rule for determining the relative priorities between these various legal events and the item.

2. The rule is that if any one of several things has been done to the item or if it has reached any one of several stages in its processing at the time the knowledge, notice, stop-payment order or legal process is received or served and a reasonable time for the bank to act thereon expires or the setoff is exercised, the knowledge, notice, stop-payment order, legal process or setoff comes too late, the item has priority and a charge to the customer's account may be made and is effective. With respect to the effect of the customer's bankruptcy, the bank's rights are governed by Bankruptcy Code Section 542(c) which codifies the result of Bank of Marin v. England, 385 U.S. 99 (1966). Section 4-405 applies to the death or incompetence of the customer.

3. Once a payor bank has accepted or certified an item or has paid the item in cash, the event has occurred that determines priorities between the item and the various legal events usually described as the "four legals." Paragraphs (1) and (2) of subsection (a) so provide. If a payor bank settles for an item presented over the counter for immediate payment by a cashier's check or teller's check which the presenting person agrees to accept, paragraph (3) of subsection (a) would control and the event determining priority has occurred. Because presentment was over the counter, Section 4-301(a) does not apply to give the payor bank the statutory right to revoke the settlement. Thus the requirements of paragraph (3) have been met unless a clearing-house rule or agreement of the parties provides otherwise.

4. In the usual case settlement for checks is by entries in bank accounts. Since the process-of-posting test has been abandoned as inappropriate for automated check collection, the determining event for priorities is a given hour on the day after the item is received. (Paragraph (5) of subsection (a).) The hour may be fixed by the bank no earlier than one hour after the opening on the next banking day after the bank received the check and no later than the close of that banking day. If an item is received after the payor bank's regular Section 4-108 cutoff hour, it is treated as received the next banking day. If a bank receives an item after its regular cutoff hour on Monday and an attachment is levied at noon on Tuesday, the attachment is prior to the item if the bank had not before that hour taken the action described in paragraphs (1), (2), and (3) of subsection (a). The Commentary to Regulation CC Section 229.36(d) explains that even though settlement by a paying bank for a check is final for Regulation CC purposes, the paying bank's right to return the check before its midnight deadline under the UCC is not affected.

5. Another event conferring priority for an item and a charge to the customer's account based upon the item is stated by the language "become accountable for the amount of the item under Section 4-302 dealing with the payor bank's responsibility for late return of items." Expiration of the deadline under Section 4-302 with resulting accountability by the payor bank for the amount of the item, establishes priority of the item over notices, stop-payment orders, legal process or setoff.

6. In the case of knowledge, notice, stop-payment orders and legal process the effective time for determining whether they were received too late to affect the payment of an item and a charge to the customer's account by reason of such payment, is receipt plus a reasonable time for the bank to act on any of these communications. Usually a relatively short time is required to communicate to the accounting department advice of one of these events but certainly some time is necessary. Compare Sections 1-201(27) and 4-403. In the case of setoff the effective time is when the setoff is actually made.

7. As between one item and another no priority rule is stated. This is justified because of the impossibility of stating a rule that would be fair in all cases, having in mind the almost infinite number of combinations of large and small checks in relation to the available balance on hand in the drawer's account; the possible methods of receipt; and other variables. Further, the drawer has drawn all the checks, the drawer should have funds available to meet all of them and has no basis for urging one should be paid before another; and the holders have no direct right against the payor bank in any event, unless of course, the bank has accepted, certified or finally paid a particular item, or has become liable for it under Section 4-302. Under subsection (b) the bank has the right to pay items for which it is itself liable ahead of those for which it is not.

Reason for 1990 Change [D.C. Law 10-249]

The preamble of subsection (a) is restated in order to improve comprehension. Paragraphs (1)-(4) of subsection (a) are restated to accommodate the addition of paragraph (5) which is stated in terms of the reaching of a cutoff hour rather than the doing of an act. Subsection (a)(3) is amended to conform to Section 4-215(a)(2) which provides that a payor bank cannot make settlement provisional by unilaterally reserving a right to revoke the settlement. The right to revoke must come from a statute (e.g. Section 4-301), a clearing-house rule or other agreement. Former subsection (1)(d) is deleted for the reason stated in the Reason for 1990 Change for former Section 4-109. The reference to former Section 4-213 is deleted from subsection (a)(4) because the reference to accountability in former Section 4-213 is deleted from what is now Section 4-215.

Subsection (a)(5) is added to allow payor banks, under time pressure to return checks to meet Regulation CC deadlines, to fix a cutoff hour earlier than the close of the next banking day after the banking day on which the checks are received. Banks must have time after receiving an attachment or effecting a setoff to return a check if the attachment or setoff renders the customer's account insufficient to pay the check. Since banks are now returning checks earlier during the next banking day after the banking day of receipt owing to Regulation CC, they need a cutoff hour earlier than the close of the banking day after that of receipt because they may be returning their checks before the close of that banking day.

Subsection (b) is amended to delete "convenient to the bank" as being superfluous. The other modifications are made to conform with current legislative drafting practices, with no intent to change substance.

Prior Codifications

1981 Ed., § 28:4-303.

1973 Ed., § 28:4-303.

Legislative History of Laws

For legislative history of D.C. Law 10-249, see Historical and Statutory Notes following § 28:4-101.