## Facts

- Eliza Jenkins held a deposit account at Scituate Savings Bank.
- Jenkins assigned her claim and delivered the deposit book to Craig, who notified the bank of his ownership.
- The bank was later summoned as trustee of Jenkins in a creditor’s suit against her and was defaulted.
- After judgment, execution issued; Charles G. Davis, attorney for the judgment creditor, took the execution and demanded payment from the bank within thirty days.
- The bank’s treasurer issued Davis a new deposit book “as trustee” for the amount of Jenkins’s deposit, and Davis credited that amount on the execution (returned satisfied in part).
- After the bank entered receivership, Davis petitioned in equity to have the receivers rank him as a creditor and pay dividends on the amount shown in the new deposit book.

## Issues

1. Whether Davis could be treated as a creditor of the bank based on the new deposit book issued to him after trustee process, despite a prior assignment of the underlying deposit to Craig with notice to the bank.
2. Whether issuing a deposit-book credit to Davis constituted payment or otherwise created an enforceable contractual obligation by the bank.
3. Whether the bank’s promise implied by the new deposit book was enforceable without consideration when the bank had no underlying liability on Jenkins’s deposit.

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed dismissal of the petition.
- Davis could not claim the deposit as Jenkins’s assignee because the account belonged to Craig, whose title was not affected by later dealings between Davis and the bank.
- Crediting Davis in a new deposit book was not payment; it merely reflected a debt entry on the bank’s books.
- Any recovery by Davis required a binding contract with the bank, but the promise represented by the new deposit book was unsupported by consideration because the bank owed no liability on the underlying account.

## Legal Principles

- A prior assignee of a bank deposit, upon notice to the bank, holds title beyond the reach of later arrangements premised on the assignor’s supposed interest.
- A bank’s credit entry or issuance of a deposit book does not itself constitute payment; it evidences (at most) a debtor-creditor relation as to that credit.
- An alleged new promise by a bank to pay a deposit amount is not enforceable without consideration when the bank is under no preexisting liability and receives no bargained-for exchange.
- A promisee’s subsequent acts in reliance do not supply consideration sufficient to convert a gratuitous promise into a binding contract.

## Conclusion

Because the deposit had been assigned to Craig and the bank’s issuance of a new deposit book to Davis neither effected payment nor created a supported contractual obligation, Davis was not entitled to be ranked as a creditor or to receive dividends from the bank’s receivers.


Commonwealth v. Scituate Sav. Bank, 137 Mass. 301 (1884)