FACTS:

Petitioner was a prominent businessman who, because of different business commitments,  entrusted  to  his  then  secretary  the  handling  of  his  credit cards  and  checkbooks.    For  a  material  period  of  time,  the  secretary  was able  to  encash  and  deposit  in  her  personal  account  money  from  the account  of  petitioner.    Upon  knowledge  of  her  acts,  she  was  fired immediately  and  criminal  actions  were  filed  against  her.    Thereafter, petitioner requested the bank to restore its money but the bank refused to
do so.   
 

HELD:

The  petitioner  doesn’t  have  a  course  of  action  against  the  bank.    To  be entitled to damages, petitioner has the burden of proving negligence on the part of the bank for failure to detect the discrepancy in the signatures on the checks.  It is incumbent upon petitioner to establish the fact of forgery.  Curiously though, petitioner failed to supply additional signature specimens as requested by the NBI.  The bank was not also remiss in performance of its duties, it practices due diligence in encashing checks.  The bank didn’t
have  any  hint  of  the  modus  operandi  of  Eugenio  as  she  was  a  regular customer, designated by the petitioner himself to transact on his behalf.  
 
It was petitioner who was negligent in this case.  He failed to examine his bank  statements  and  this  was  the  proximate  cause  of  his  own  damage.  Because of this negligence, he is precluded from setting up the defense of forgery with regard the checks.