American Trust Co. v. McCallister

299 P. 319, 136 Or. 338, 1931 Ore. LEXIS 125
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedApril 2, 1931
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 299 P. 319 (American Trust Co. v. McCallister) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
American Trust Co. v. McCallister, 299 P. 319, 136 Or. 338, 1931 Ore. LEXIS 125 (Or. 1931).

Opinion

*340 BEAN, C. J.

Under the provisions of section 22-1202, Oregon Code 1930, codifying chapter 207, General Laws of Oregon, 1925, as amended by chapter 380, *341 General Laws of Oregon, 1929, section 27, before any trust company shall transact any business within this state it shall deposit with the superintendent of banks, as security and as a pledge for the faithful performance of its duties as a trust company, the sum of $50,000 in cash or securities, and that trust companies having a capital stock of less than $100,000 shall be required to deposit one-half the amount of such capital. Section 22-1213 defines “trust business” and prescribes the powers of a trust company in addition to the powers conferred by the general corporation laws.

In 1913 the legislature adopted chapter 341, entitled :

“An act to protect purchasers of stocks and bonds and prevent fraud in the sale thereof; to create a corporation department to administer this and other laws relating to the regulation and supervision of corporations, and providing penalties for the violation hereof.”

Section 25-1303, Oregon Code 1930, provides that no permit shall be issued by the corporation commissioner authorizing the sale of any security or securities in the state of Oregon until there shall have been paid to the corporation commissioner, with the application for a permit, a graduated filing fee based on the value of the securities, but not less than $10; provided, however, that the provisions of this section shall not apply to “national and state bank and trust company stock * * *.” A similar exemption is contained in subsequent amendments of the Blue Sky Law of 1913.

The principal question involved is whether a corporation, organized under the general corporation laws of the state of Oregon in 1901, which filed supplemental articles of incorporation changing its name on *342 August 20, 1927, having as a part of its corporate or charter powers the right to receive money on deposit or in trust with or without paying interest on the same, and to issue certificates of deposit for the same, and also having the right to take or hold any property, real or personal, in trust, and execute such trust, to act as executor, administrator, agent, trustee, assignee, factor, broker or receiver, is a trust company within the meaning of that provision of the Blue Sky Law relating to the sale of stock of the corporation, which provides that the stock of trust companies shall be exempt from the provisions of that law; or, otherwise stated, when the legislature exempted securities or “national and state bank and trust company stock”, what kind of trust companies were embraced within the provisions of the exemption?

A law was first enacted which provided for the incorporation and regulation of trust companies in 1913. In 1914 a suit was instituted by the Pacific Title & Trust Company against Sargent, Superintendent of Banks of the State of Oregon (73 Or. 485, 492, 144 P. 452), wherein the plaintiff Pacific Title & Trust Company, which was incorporated January 14, 1901, filed supplemental articles of incorporation June 30, 1906; the court, in considering the question of whether such corporations come within the terminology of section 2 of chapter 354, General Laws of Oregon, 1913, providing “for the incorporation and organization, regulation, liquidation and supervision, of trust companies and the regulation of banks authorized to do the business of a trust company”, held

“There are two classes of corporations which are to be known as trust companies: One is a bank incorporated under the laws of the state providing for ‘the incorporation and organization of banks, ’ which is authorized *343 by its charter to act in certain fiduciary capacities named in the act; and the other is a corporation organized under section 1 of the act in question. Such corporations. alone are subject to the provisions of the act under the principle of the mention of one being the exclusion of the other. In other words, the act concerns only those corporations defined by its own terms.”

It was held that the plaintiff was not required to abandon the word “trust” contained in the name of the corporation.

It would seem that “trust company stock,” embraced in the statute, was intended, by the framers and makers of the law, to refer to stock of those trust companies defined by the statute and not to a corporation organized prior to the passage of that law under the general incorporation laws, although such corporation was authorized to perform certain trust duties. There are in the statute then three kinds of corporations: General corporations, some of which are empowered to transact a trust business; banks, authorized to do the.business of a trust company; and trust companies, which are required to qualify by the deposit of securities, as above indicated. The reason for exempting trust company stock from the necessity of coming within the provision requiring a permit is that such a trust company is qualified under the statute by depositing a large amount of securities to guarantee the faithful performance of their duties. Other corporations are not subject to such requirement, but in order to sell securities or stock they are required to obtain a permit from the corporation commissioner. The requirement is plain and the reason thereof clear when the different statutes are taken into consideration.

*344 In determining the meaning of a statute, the particular object intended or the mischief which it was designed to remedy and the history of the period and of the act itself may be considered, and the statutory meaning of the word or phrase must be gathered from the purpose for which the statute was enacted: Northern Counties Trust v. Sears, 30 Or. 388, 395 (41 P. 931, 35 L. R. A. 188); Wiley v. Solvay Process Co., 215 N. Y. 584, 588 (109 N. E. 606, Ann. Cas. 1917A, 314, 316); State v. Huxford, 35 R. I. 387, 393 (87 Atl. 171, Ann. Cas. 1915C, 1135, 1138); State v. Bass Pub. Co., 104 Me. 288 (71 Atl. 894, 895, 20 L. R. A. (N. S.) 495); Superior Oil Syndicate v. Handley, 99 Or. 146, 157 (195 P. 159). The question determined in the latter case referred to a foreign trust company or a common law trust selling certificates of shares, and we do not find the opinion in that case of much assistance in the present inquiry.

The act of 1913 defined a “trust company,” and this court held in Pacific Title & Trust Co. v. Sargent, supra, that the legislative definition did not apply to plaintiff under the definition of a “trust company” in that case. The American Trust Company is not a trust company within the meaning of the statute, § 25-1302, Oregon Code 1930; that is, the American Trust Company is not subject to the requirements of the statute relating to “trust companies” and its stock is not embraced in, or entitled to the exemptions accorded to bank and trust company stock. The amendments of the trust law subsequent to the rendition of the opinion in Pacific Title & Trust Co. v. Sargent,

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Bluebook (online)
299 P. 319, 136 Or. 338, 1931 Ore. LEXIS 125, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/american-trust-co-v-mccallister-or-1931.