District Of Columbia § 28:8-304 - Indorsement.

§ 28:8-304. Indorsement.

28:8-304

Annotations

“Security certificate”. Section 8-102(a)(16).

“Registered form”. Section 8-102(a)(13).

“Purchaser”. Sections 1-201(33) and 8-116.

“Indorsement”. Section 8-102(a)(11).

“Certificated security”. Section 8-102(a)(4).

“Bearer form”. Section 8-102(a)(2).

6. Subsection (f) makes clear that the indorser of a security certificate does not warrant that the issuer will honor the underlying obligation. In view of the nature of investment securities and the circumstances under which they are normally transferred, a transferor cannot be held to warrant as to the issuer’s actions. As a transferor the indorser, of course, remains liable for breach of the warranties set forth in this Article ( Section 8-108).

5. Subsection (e) deals with the significance of an indorsement on a security certificate in bearer form. The concept of indorsement applies only to registered securities. A purported indorsement of bearer paper is normally of no effect. An indorsement “for collection,” “for surrender” or the like, charges a purchaser with notice of adverse claims ( Section 8-105(d)) but does not operate beyond this to interfere with any right the holder may otherwise possess to have the security registered.

The transferee’s right to compel an indorsement where a security certificate has been delivered with intent to transfer is recognized in the case law. See Coats v. Guaranty Bank & Trust Co., 170 La. 871, 129 So. 513 (1930). A proper indorsement is one of the requisites of transfer which a purchaser of a certificated security has a right to obtain ( Section 8-307). A purchaser may not only compel an indorsement under that section but may also recover for any reasonable expense incurred by the transferor’s failure to respond to the demand for an indorsement.

4. Subsection (d) deals with the effect of delivery without indorsement. As between the parties the transfer is made complete upon delivery, but the transferee cannot become a protected purchaser until indorsement is made. The indorsement does not operate retroactively, and notice may intervene between delivery and indorsement so as to prevent the transferee from becoming a protected purchaser. Although a purchaser taking without a necessary indorsement may be subject to claims of ownership, any issuer’s defense of which the purchaser had no notice at the time of delivery will be cut off, since the provisions of this Article protect all purchasers for value without notice ( Section 8-202).

3. Subsection (c) deals with the effect of an indorsement without delivery. There must be a voluntary parting with control in order to effect a valid transfer of a certificated security as between the parties. Levey v. Nason, 279 Mass. 268, 181 N.E. 193 (1932), and National Surety Co. v. Indemnity Insurance Co. of North America, 237 App.Div. 485, 261 N.Y.S. 605 (1933). The provision in Section 10 of the Uniform Stock Transfer Act that an attempted transfer without delivery amounts to a promise to transfer is omitted. Even under that Act the effect of such a promise was left to the applicable law of contracts, and this Article by making no reference to such situations intends to achieve a similar result. With respect to delivery there is no counterpart to subsection (d) on right to compel indorsement, such as is envisaged in Johnson v. Johnson, 300 Mass. 24, 13 N.E.2d 788 (1938), where the transferee under a written assignment was given the right to compel a transfer of the certificate.

2. Subsection (b) recognizes the validity of a “partial” indorsement, e.g., as to fifty shares of the one hundred represented by a single certificate. The rights of a transferee under a partial indorsement to the status of a protected purchaser are left to the case law.

1. By virtue of the definition of indorsement in Section 8-102 and the rules of this section, the simplified method of indorsing certificated securities previously set forth in the Uniform Stock Transfer Act is continued. Although more than one special indorsement on a given security certificate is possible, the desire for dividends or interest, as the case may be, should operate to bring the certificate home for registration of transfer within a reasonable period of time. The usual form of assignment which appears on the back of a stock certificate or in a separate “power” may be filled up either in the form of an assignment, a power of attorney to transfer, or both. If it is not filled up at all but merely signed, the indorsement is in blank. If filled up either as an assignment or as a power of attorney to transfer, the indorsement is special.