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In a case recently decided in the Law Division, the firm obtained summary judgment for its client, a national bank, resulting in the dismissal of claims by a customer for allegedly unauthorized banking transactions that had taken place in her checking account over a two-year period.  At issue were forged checks, ATM withdrawals and Automated Clearinghouse (ACH) transactions.  The plaintiff asserted, inter alia, that common law negligence principles could be applied to saddle the bank with liability for the losses occasioned by the transactions.  F&M cited to well-settled case law that courts are generally prohibited from entertaining common law causes of action in matters governed by the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC).  Moreover, we emphasized that the relationship between the bank and its customer was essentially contractual, being governed by the personal deposit account agreement between the parties, as well as the relevant statutes, including not only the UCC but also the federal Electronic Fund Transfer Act (the lattermost applying to the ATM and ACH transactions at issue).  The Court agreed, concluding that the customer’s failure to satisfy the notification requirements of and beat the time-bars contained in the contractual/statutory scheme extinguished the customer’s claims in their entirety.