U

Under the U.C.C., a person is not liable for a negotiable instrument unless he or she signed it. See D.C. Code § 28:3-401 (2001). However, D.C. Code § 28:4-406 imposes upon bank customers a duty to discover and report unauthorized signatures or alterations to the bank. The rationale for this U.C.C. provision is to allocate the burden of discovering forgeries to the party best able to detect the forgery: customers are more familiar with their own signatures and transactions than a financial institution that may process thousands of transactions. See American Airlines Employees Fed. Credit Union v. Martin, 29 S.W.3d 86, 92 (Tex. 2000). ...