Central National Bank of Mattoon v. United States Department of Treasury

912 F.2d 897, 1990 WL 124542
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedOctober 16, 1990
Docket89-3219
StatusPublished
Cited by28 cases

This text of 912 F.2d 897 (Central National Bank of Mattoon v. United States Department of Treasury) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Central National Bank of Mattoon v. United States Department of Treasury, 912 F.2d 897, 1990 WL 124542 (7th Cir. 1990).

Opinion

POSNER, Circuit Judge.

Central National Bank is one of two national banks in Mattoon, a town of 20,000 in downstate Illinois. After an investigation of the bank’s trust department, the Comptroller of the Currency, who regulates national banks, issued in 1987 a notice of intent to revoke the bank’s permission to provide trust services to its customers. The notice was issued pursuant to 12 U.S.C. § 92a(k), which authorizes the Comptroller, upon notice and hearing, to revoke trust powers that the bank has “unlawfully or unsoundly exercised.” After a hearing before an administrative law judge, the judge found that the bank had committed many violations of the Comptroller’s regulations and engaged in many imprudent practices, but decided- that it would be enough to order the bank to cease *900 and desist. On review of the administrative law judge’s order the Comptroller upheld the judge’s findings, but considering the remedy imposed too weak revoked the bank’s trust powers. The bank asks us to set aside the Comptroller’s order. 12 U.S.C. § 1818(h)(2). We can do that only if the Comptroller has violated a statute or regulation, made findings of fact unsupported by substantial evidence, or exercised his judgment in an arbitrary, which is to say unreasonable, fashion. Id.; 5 U.S.C. §§ 706(2)(A), (E); Larimore v. Conover, 775 F.2d 890, 895-96 (7th Cir.1985), reversed en banc on other grounds, 789 F.2d 1244 (7th Cir.1986). These precepts apply to choice of remedy, id.; del Junco v. Conover, 682 F.2d 1338, 1340 (9th Cir.1982); First National Bank v. Comptroller of Currency, 697 F.2d 674, 680 (5th Cir.1983) —in spades, as we shall see.

At oral argument the lawyer for the bank surprised us by asking us to expel a reporter for a Mattoon newspaper whom the lawyer had spotted upon entering the courtroom. After giving counsel for both sides an opportunity to address the motion, we huddled briefly and denied it. The bank had earlier moved to seal the record, and we had granted that motion, but the motion had said nothing about conducting the oral argument in secrecy. A party who wants such extraordinary (albeit not completely unprecedented, Application of United States, 427 F.2d 639, 641 (9th Cir.1970)) relief must ask for it in advance of argument, not only to give the other party fair warning and the bench an opportunity for due deliberation but also to give the press — which may be the only adversary of the request for secrecy — a chance to be heard. Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457 U.S. 596, 609 n. 25, 102 S.Ct. 2613, 2621 n. 25, 73 L.Ed.2d 248 (1982); Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, 443 U.S. 368, 401, 99 S.Ct. 2898, 2916, 61 L.Ed.2d 608 (1979) (concurring opinion). Perhaps the lawyer was surprised that a reporter would want to attend the argument, but he should not have been.

Even if the motion to close oral argument had been timely, it would not have been granted. The bank’s interest in secrecy would have had to be weighed against the interest of the press, as the representative (albeit self-appointed) of the public, in access to judicial proceedings. The proceeding before the Comptroller, the decisions of the administrative law judge and of the Comptroller, and the briefs in this court have all been secret, so that if the oral argument were also secret the public would have no inkling of the Comptroller’s findings or the contents of its order until we issued our opinion — and not even then, if the bank asked us to seal it and we acceded to that request too. The bank is concerned that public knowledge of these things may impair its standing with its customers. Indeed it may, but perhaps it should, for it is information material to the decision whether to do business with the bank. The private and the social interest in secrecy must not be confused. An individual, or, as here, a firm or other institution, may be injured by disclosure of a disreputable fact about it, such as a record of crime or incompetence. But the very revelation that injures it may be useful to others, the potential transactors with it; so the net social value of the information, when the interests of all who are affected by it are summed, may be positive. Evaluated socially in this manner, the bank’s interest in keeping the bad news about its management secret is meager in relation to the claims of a free press for access to governmental proceedings. Joy v. North, 692 F.2d 880, 894 (2d Cir.1982); Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. v. FTC, 710 F.2d 1165, 1180 (6th Cir.1983); cf. In re Knoxville News-Sentinel Co., 723 F.2d 470, 477 (6th Cir.1983). The sealing of the record strikes the balance between the competing interests as favorably to the bank as could be thought proper, if not more so.

The case might stand differently if the Comptroller, or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures deposits in national (as in other insured) banks, was asking for secrecy. The history of bank “runs” could be thought to argue for controlling public access to infor *901 mation about disciplinary proceedings against banks. But the proper entity to make such an argument is a banking agency. No such agency has stepped forward to support the bank’s desire to exclude the press from the argument of the appeal. Indeed, the Comptroller’s lawyer refused to support the bank’s motion. (An article duly appeared, on the front page of the local newspaper, the day after the argument. Hagen, Appellate Court Hears CNB Case, Mattoon Journal Gazette, June 15, 1990.)

We turn to the merits of the petition for review. The bank does not deny that it has engaged in improper practices in its trust department, but pleads a variety of mitigating circumstances. The improper practices not only are numerous but also reach back many years and were only partly corrected in previous remedial proceedings that resulted in the entry and subsequent dissolution of a cease and desist order in the early 1980s.

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Bluebook (online)
912 F.2d 897, 1990 WL 124542, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/central-national-bank-of-mattoon-v-united-states-department-of-treasury-ca7-1990.