00-3309 Oak Brook Bank v. Northern Trust Co.

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“[A] federal reserve bank is open to the public for substantially all of its banking functions whenever the check-processing department is open for the receipt of checks, which in the case of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago is 24 hours of every day that the bank is open. The few cases dealing with the meaning of “banking day” under the materially identical definition of the term in the UCC are in accord with our position, United Bank of Crete-Steger v. Gainer Bank, N.A., 874 F.2d 475 (7th Cir.1989); Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Devon Bank, 832 F.2d 1005, 1007 (7th Cir.1987), the latter emphasizing as do we today the practical objections to the fact-intensive, case-by-case approach urged by Oak Brook. (Neither case involved a federal reserve bank.) Northern’s employment of a means of delivery calculated to get the checks to the Federal Reserve Bank by any time up to midnight on Feb. 13 therefore beat the deadline, and so summary judgment in Northern’s favor was rightly granted. We leave open the implications of our analysis for returning banks other than federal reserve banks, who we were told dominate the check-return function.”

Affirmed.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Zagel, J., Posner, J.