Commercial Paper

Today marks a day where I am looking into a few remaining areas of the law that may or may not be covered on the bar. One of these areas, commercial paper, is a subject I actually do not remember covering in law school. I thought it would be part of the secured transactions stuff, but it appears as if it may have been something I either did not take, or was skipped over by one of my professor due to time constraints.

It's a little strange to think that I need to teach myself something entirely foreign when I have so much other information that probably needs harmonized. However, because this is a U.C.C. subject, failure to know the rules pretty much dooms you to fail the question. For instance, a lot of the material deals with holders in due course and liability on negotiated instruments like checks and bills of lading. Unlike a lot of contract law stuff, much of the law in this area seems pretty counter intuitive to me. For instance, if someone steals your checkbook and writes a check to himself forging your name, the person who holds that check has good title. Thus, when the check is presented, the risk lies with the bank or entity cashing it, not the original drawer. The rationale is that the forgery operates as the signature of the forger, so that the presenter has good title in the forger's instrument.

This is exactly what I need right now.