# Samuel Rappaport Family Partnership v. Meridian Bank

> Superior Court of Pennsylvania · April 11, 1995 · 441 Pa. Super. 194

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9767153

## Case

- **Full name:** SAMUEL RAPPAPORT FAMILY PARTNERSHIP, Appellant, v. MERIDIAN BANK
- **Court:** Superior Court of Pennsylvania
- **Decided:** April 11, 1995
- **Citations:** 441 Pa. Super. 194; 657 A.2d 17; 26 U.C.C. Rep. Serv. 2d (West) 474; 1995 Pa. Super. LEXIS 891
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Olszewski
- **Judges:** Olszewski, Johnson, Hester
- **Cited by:** 59 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9767153

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- noting'that a letter of credit involves three agreements: the underlying agreement between the bank’s customer and the beneficiary, an agreement between -the bank and its customer to issue the letter of credit, and a *389 third, the letter itself which requires the bank to pay…

## Opinion text

OLSZEWSKI, Judge,
concurring:
We are constrained to concur with the majority that Mr. Rappaport cannot avail himself of the letter of credit. The letter required that Mr. Orleans, as landlord, sign a certificate that his tenants had defaulted on their rent payments. Orleans died and Rappaport bought the property, assuming all of Orleans’s rights. When the same tenants defaulted, Rappaport signed the certification of default as landlord, explaining that he was Orleans’s lawful assignee under the lease.
While common sense would dictate that Rappaport stood in Orleans’s shoes as landlord, the law of letters of credit does not follow the dictates of common sense. Rather, it follows a rule of strict compliance. The letter required Orleans’s signature, and once he died, the letter of credit became worthless. It was Rappaport’s burden to discover this, and because he did not, he cannot blame the Bank for refusing to honor the letter. Such a departure from reasonable expectations might be unconscionable in the realm of consumer transactions. In *208 the sophisticated area of high finance, it is a valid risk-shifting device.
We therefore concur in the result reached, despite its harsh and counter-intuitive appearance.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9767153. Public record. Not legal advice.