SOS Oil Corp. v. Norstar Bank of Long Is

In SOS Oil Corp. v. Norstar Bank of Long Is. (76 NY2d 561, 568-570, 563 N.E.2d 258, 561 N.Y.S.2d 887 [1990]), the Court of Appeals addressed plaintiff's statutory claim under UCC 4-302 against a payor bank due to an encoding error by the same bank, acting also as a depositary bank. In SOS Oil Corp. (76 NY2d at 570), the Court of Appeals affirmed the lower courts' granting of summary judgment to plaintiff, finding Norstar as payor bank strictly liable under UCC 4-302. As a defense, the appellant bank claimed plaintiff had failed to notify it of the error within the shortened statute of limitations established by the bank's "corporate resolution." The Court noted that, because the appellant bank was liable as a payor bank under UCC 4-302, the shortened notification time limits contained in the corporate resolution were not controlling as they only applied to claims against Norstar in its role as a depositary bank. Thus, as JP Morgan Chase acted as plaintiff's depositary bank, SOS does not support plaintiff's claim that UCC 4-302 precludes enforcement of the shortened limitations period contained in the Account Agreement. The Court further noted that it was "not called upon to decide whether the time limitations of that paragraph of the corporate resolution could ever be a valid restriction on a customer's claim."