Commissioner of Banks

139 N.E. 800, 245 Mass. 448, 1923 Mass. LEXIS 1085
CourtMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
DecidedMay 26, 1923
StatusPublished

This text of 139 N.E. 800 (Commissioner of Banks) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Commissioner of Banks, 139 N.E. 800, 245 Mass. 448, 1923 Mass. LEXIS 1085 (Mass. 1923).

Opinion

Carroll, J.

This petition is brought by the commissioner of banks, who on September 25, 1920, took possession of the Cosmopolitan Trust Company (an insolvent Massachusetts company doing business in Boston and having a commercial and a savings department) to transfer from the commercial department to the savings department money which had been illegally taken from the latter and paid to the former. The commissioner found in the savings department a large number of notes, which had been discounted by the commercial department and sold to the savings department. He asked that $1,297,429 of the amount paid for these notes be transferred to the savings department. The master to whom the case was referred, found that the notes were discounted in the commercial department and full face value was paid for them by the savings department, in cash or its equivalent, and, if the transactions are allowed to stand, a substantial loss will result to the savings department. In each case where notes of corporations or individuals borrowing on personal security, as stated in the petition, were transferred to the savings? department, the loans of the savings department on personal securities at that time exceeded one third of the deposits and income of the savings department. G. L. c. 168, § 54, cl. 9. It was found that no copy of a report of an examination of the affairs, assets and liabilities of the borrowing corporations mentioned in the petition, was ever delivered to the trust company, and that no examination of the affairs, assets and liabilities of these corporations was ever made at the request or on behalf of the trust company, as required by G. L. c. 168, § 54, cl. 9 (b).

o Some of the notes had no indorser, surety or collateral security. Subsequent to the transfer to the savings department, certain notes were renewed in that department, and the principal question in the case is whether the sum of [451]*451$683,152.22, paid by the savings department for the purchase of these renewal notes, should be transferred to that department. The practice of the savings department was: A note in which were invested funds of the savings department was given a number and placed in an envelope correspondingly numbered. When such note was paid in cash the note was stamped Paid ’ and surrendered to the maker, and the envelope or cover of the note was stamped ‘ Paid.’ Entries were, of course, made in the books of the savings department to the effect that the note was paid. Precisely the same steps were taken in regard to a note which was not paid in cash, but for which a renewal note was substituted, with the additional step that the renewal note was given a new number and placed in another envelope correspondingly numbered. Upon the envelope or cover of the original note there would be made no entry to indicate whether the original note was ‘ paid ’ in cash or by a renewal note; it would be stamped Paid ’ in either case.”

The business of the commercial department and that of the savings department of the trust company were carried on in the same banking rooms. The executive officers of the trust company had the management of the business and affairs of both departments. The savings department had its own manager (sometimes a titular officer of the trust company) and subordinate employees acting under the general direction of the executive officers. The various department heads were, or felt themselves to be, directly responsible to the president of the trust company. So far as concerns the transactions because of which relief is asked in the petition, every one of those transactions was entered into pursuant to an order or direction of the president.” The master further found, that “ there was no intention upon the part of the officers of the savings department or upon the part of the makers of the renewed notes that debts evidenced by notes transferred from the commerical department should be extinguished by the giving and acceptance of renewal notes, or that the renewal notes constituted new debts, or that the transaction of renewing a note should constitute a new transaction between the savings depart[452]*452ment and the individual borrower, or that the giving of a renewal note was anything more than a postponement of the time of payment of the debt evidenced by the renewed note; and that the renewal of time notes at maturity, if they were not then paid, was in accordance with the practice of the savings department — to obtain renewals of time notes at maturity, if not then paid and .if still retained in the savings department, in order that it should not appear to be carrying overdue notes among its assets. The above finding as to intention ’ is not based upon any direct evidence from trust company officer or from any borrower as to such intention.” It was also found that in every instance where notes were transferred from the commercial department to the savings department, the transfer was by direction of the president of the trust company. “ The savings department was treated as a ‘ feeder ’ of the commercial department. ... A general course of dealing thus made apparent made it evident that notes were transferred to the savings department rather for the purpose of obtaining funds for use in the commercial department than with the object of providing the savings department with investments of its funds. . . . Quite a number of the notes mentioned in the petition were transferred to the savings department in so short a time after their discount by the commercial department as to lead to the inference that it was intended that the makers of the notes should obtain savings department funds.”

In Commissioner of Banks, petitioner, in re Prudential Trust Co. 240 Mass. 478, it was decided that notes and other securities handed over from the commercial department to the savings department should be returned by the latter and the sum of money paid from the savings department for these securities should be transferred from the commercial department to the savings department. It was said at page 483 of the opinion, in speaking of the provisions of the statute: “ These provisions of statute manifest a legislative purpose to place savings departments of trust companies as nearly as possible on the same footing of security as savings banks, and to overcome so far as practicable [453]*453the risk arising from the temptation to officers of embarrassed trust companies to help out any weakness in the commercial department by resort to the more conservative and secure assets of the savings departments. These provisions, having regard to the ends sought to be attained, must be treated as mandatory and not merely as directory. They would fall short of accomplishing their purpose if they are held merely as binding upon the conscience of officers of trust companies. These provisions have the further effect of requiring the restoration to the savings department of the equivalent of any withdrawals, swapping of investments or other transactions between it and the commercial department made contrary to the statutes to the harm of the savings department and for the apparent or supposed advantage of the commercial department. Deposits in the savings department of trust companies are presumed to be made upon the faith of the statutes for their protection. This faith must be kept in the performance as well as in the word of the law. The trust company is a single legal entity.

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Related

Commissioner of Banks v. Cosmopolitan Trust Co.
133 N.E. 630 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1922)
Commissioner of Banks
134 N.E. 253 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1922)
Commissioner of Banks
242 Mass. 343 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1922)
Stebbins v. North Adams Trust Co.
136 N.E. 880 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1922)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
139 N.E. 800, 245 Mass. 448, 1923 Mass. LEXIS 1085, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commissioner-of-banks-mass-1923.