The general rule is that a check payable to a fictitious payee is payable to bearer; but if a real person is intended by the name of the payee, the check must be indorsed by that person or by some one with authority from him, otherwise a forgery is perpetrated in indorsing the check. But a fictitious payee may be intended although the name of a real person is used.1 Such checks when paid are good as against the drawer.2 But a fictitious payee is not a person who is not in existence, but whom the drawer believes to be in existence.3 Payment upon an indorsement representing such a payee is .lot payment.4 Such is the rule where a drawer is imposed upon to draw a check payable to a fictitious person.5 But if the drawer has been guilty of negligence in the manner of drawing the check and perhaps of delivering it that misleads the bank, the payment is good.6 The certification of a check made payable to a fictitious payee is good in the hands of a bona fide holder thereof.7

20 Brooklyn Trust Co. v. Toler, 65 Hun, 187, 138 N. Y. 675.

21 First Nat. Bank v. Northwestern Nat. Bank, 152 I11. 296.

22 Parke v. Roser, 67 Ind. 500; Clews v. Bank of New York, 89 N. Y. 418; Marine Nat. Bank v. City Nat. Bank, 59 N. Y. 67.

23 Security Bank v. National Bank of Republic, 67 N. Y. 458.

24 Helwege v. Hibernia Nat. Bank, 28 La. Ann. 520.

25 Meridian Nat. Bank v. First Nat. Bank, 33 N. E. R, 247; Merchants' Trust Co. v. Metropolis Bank, 7 Daly, 137.

26 Farmers' Bank v. Butchers' Bank, 16 N. Y. 125; Bank of British North America v. Merchants' Bank, 91 N. Y. 106.

27 French v. Irwin, 4 Baxt. 401.

28 Brown v. Leckie, 43 I11. 497. This decision is utterly wrong, because as to the drawer as well as the drawee the check would be paid by the bank's credit to the payee by way of set-off. This case is another illustration of the Illinois confusion.

29Buehler v. Gait, 35 I11. App. 225.