Brock v. Gormley

187 S.E. 211, 53 Ga. App. 789, 1936 Ga. App. LEXIS 398
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedJuly 14, 1936
Docket25285
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 187 S.E. 211 (Brock v. Gormley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brock v. Gormley, 187 S.E. 211, 53 Ga. App. 789, 1936 Ga. App. LEXIS 398 (Ga. Ct. App. 1936).

Opinions

Jenkins, P. J.

The banking act of 1919 (Code, § 13-1903), provides that: “Whenever a stockholder in any bank is individually liable under the charter, and shall transfer his stock, and have such transfer entered upon the books of the bank or give to the bank written notice thereof, he shall be exempt from such liability by such transfer, unless such bank shall fail within six months from the date of the entry of such transfer or from the delivery of such notice to the bank.” Thus an assigning stockholder may relieve himself from liability only by (1) having the stock transfer entered on the books of the bank, or (2) giving to the bank written notice of the transfer. In the instant case the stockholder merely executed and delivered in September, 1929, an assignment of his certificate of stock and a power of attorney to transfer it on the books of the bank, both in blanlc, to an individual purchaser, who, although he was cashier, first vice-president, and a director of the bank, was neither instructed by the stockholder to make a transfer of the stock on the books, nor was shown to have had any authority from the bank to do so. The only additional evidence which might possibly have indicated that the stockholder caused the transfer to be “entered upon the books of the bank” was that of the stock-books themselves. These showed that before the failure of the bank on March 28, 1931, a new certificate for the two shares sold and assigned in blank and sixteen additional shares was issued by the bank to the purchaser on January 17, 1931. An entry on the books read: “Certificate No. 79—2 shares—cancelled 1-17-1931; Certificate No. 418 issued in its place 1-17-1931—16 balance sub. original—2—Ernest Brock [the stockholder]—18.” In the absence of any positive evidence as .to the date when the two shares in question were actually transferred on the books, this entry at least prima facie indicated that the transfer occurred on the date when the new certificate was issued to the purchaser, January 17, 1931, and not prior thereto. The testimony that after the stockholder made the sale in September, 1929, there had been “two stockholders’ meetings of the bank, . . held [791]*791January 14, 1930, and January 13, 1931,” no written notice of which was received by the assigning stockholder, although the bylaws required “written or printed notice” of all “special meetings of the stockholders” to be given to them, was without probative value to indicate that the time of the transfer on the books of the bank antedated the six months before the failure required by the statute, upon the theory that this testimony tended to show that the bank officials, having knowledge of the transfer on the books, no longer recognized the assignor as a stockholder, because they failed to send him notices of the meetings. The evidence was insufficient to warrant such an inference, since it failed to show that the meetings were “special meetings,” notice of which was required by the by-laws, rather than regular annual meetings, notice of which was not required.

It has been held that where a stockholder sells his stock to a person who is cashier of the bank and in charge of its stock-books and has the duty of making all stock transfers on its books, and delivers to such a person a duly-executed assignment of the stock with power of attorney to assign on the books, and also expressly directs the purchaser “as cashier” to transfer at once the stock on the books, and the officer promises to do so, this is a sufficient “written notice” to the bank “of the transfer;” and that the assigning stockholder is not subject to assessment where the cashier neglected to make the transfer on the books, and the stockholder at the time of the sale had no knowledge of the insolvent or failing condition of the bank, and did not know or suspect until after the failure that the record had not been made on the books. Jackson v. Freeman, 20 Ga. App. 767 (93 S. E. 284). However, in the instant case, the absence of instructions by the assignor, or of a promise by the assignee, receiving the certificate under the assignment in blank, to make the assignment, or of any showing of authority from the bank to the assignee to do so, differentiates the case from that decision. The mere delivery of the assignment in blank to the officer of the bank, who purchased the stock in his individual capacity, would not be “written notice to the bank” of the transfer, as required by the statute. See Candler v. Mobley, 37 Ga. App. 259 (139 S. E. 732); Longino v. Bennett, 39 Ga. App. 89, 92 (146 S. E. 324); Pignatel v. Motley, 44 Ga. App. 556 (162 S. E. 159); Bank of Toccoa v. Bond, 44 Ga. App. 450 [792]*792(161 S. E. 636); Latimer v. Bennett, 37 Ga. App. 246 (4) (139 S. E. 571).

Under the Code, § 13-1904, “the stockholder in whose name the capital stock stands upon the books of such bank at the date of its. failure, shall be primarily liable to respond upon such individual liability; but upon proof made that any stockholder at the date of the failure is insolvent, recourse may be had against the person from whom such insolvent stockholder received his stock, if within a period of six months prior to the date of the failure of such bank.” The stock involved in this case standing on the books of the bank in the name of the assignee purchaser from January 17, 1931, to the time of failure, March 28, 1931, the purchaser rather than the original stockholder was “primarily liable” to assessment, in the absence of “proof made” that the purchaser was insolvent “at the date of the failure” of the bank. This Code section is almost identical with § 22-903, relating to stockholders in general corporations, which contemplates that proof of insolvency of the assignee stockholder, primarily liable, must be made by evidence at a trial of the litigation before the assignor can be held liable. But in assignments of bank stock,’as in the instant case, “the assessment made against a stockholder in a bank which has been taken over by the superintendent of banks for liquidation, in pursuance of the stockholders’ liability law relative to defunct banks, takes the place of a judgment and bears the relation of a judgment to the execution issuing on such assessment by the superintendent of banks in accordance with the banking, laws of this State.” Neely v. Mobley, 49 Ga. App. 541 (2) (176 S. E. 527). The superintendent of banks being expressly empowered by the Code, § 13-822, to make assessments and issue executions therefor against stockholders of defunct banks, the presumption is that he “did his duty as required by law, where the execution recites that it was issued and that the assessment on which it was based was made under the authority of the law.” Carmichael v. Mobley, 50 Ga. App. 574 (4) (178 S. E. 418), and cit. Even though an assessed stockholder, upon levy of an execution, is entitled under the statute to contest by affidavit of illegality “his liability for such assessment and the amount and necessity thereof,” the burden rests upon him to support such an attack by evidence, where his attack is not sustained by the assessment or execution itself. Ac[793]*793eordingly, in this case, irrespective of whether or not the evidence was insufficient to show that the assignee stockholder, who was primarily liable, was insolvent at the time of the failure, as a condition precedent to liability of the assignor stockholder, the evidence was wholly insufficient to show or indicate that such assignee was solvent.

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193 S.E. 892 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1937)

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Bluebook (online)
187 S.E. 211, 53 Ga. App. 789, 1936 Ga. App. LEXIS 398, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brock-v-gormley-gactapp-1936.