Continental National Bank v. Weems

6 S.W. 802, 69 Tex. 489, 1888 Tex. LEXIS 885
CourtTexas Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 17, 1888
DocketNo. 2371
StatusPublished
Cited by70 cases

This text of 6 S.W. 802 (Continental National Bank v. Weems) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Texas Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Continental National Bank v. Weems, 6 S.W. 802, 69 Tex. 489, 1888 Tex. LEXIS 885 (Tex. 1888).

Opinion

Gaines, Associate Justice.

On the nineteenth day of December, 1885, William R. Baker, as president of the City Bank of Houston, and one of its largest stockholders, and the Houston Insttrance Company, another stockholder, filed a petition in the dis .rict court of Harris county against certain of its creditors and other stockholders, alleging its insolvency, and praying for the appointment of a receiver and for the collection and distribution of its assets among the holders of claims against it according. to their respective priorities; and on the same day appellee Weems was appointed receiver in accordance with the prayer of the petition, and has since been acting under direction of the [494]*494court in that capacity. By a course of dealing, kept up during a series of years by the insolvent corporation and the Continental National Bank of New York, the New York bank had discounted the paper of the Houston bank, and just before it fell due had fowarded it to the latter "for collection and returns.”

Immediately before its failure, the Houston bank had received a large amount of paper so discounted for it by the New York bank, and had collected it in part and placed the proceeds to the credit of the latter. For others of their notes the Houston bank had received renewals, which were discounted by other banks in New York, and the proceeds applied to the payment of its debts. On the third day of September, 1886, appellant intervened in the original suit, claiming to be a creditor of the City Bank of Houston, and claiming a priority of payment, out of the assets in the hands of the receiver, of the amount due to it by reason of the collection and appropriation of the proceeds of the notes sent by it to the Houston bank. The receiver resisted the claim, denying complainant’s right to priority, and answered further that the City Bank before its failure had sent to the Continental Bank several promissory notes for sums amounting in the aggregate to over twenty thousand dollars, to be discounted; that the .latter refused to discount the notes, but retained them without authority, and had then collected some of them and were proceeding to collect the others. To this counter claim complainant replied, setting up a lien upon the notes to secure the payment of a general balance due it from the City Bank at the time of its failure. Upon the trial of the issue so presented the court gave judgment, disallowing the claim of priority, but allowing the claim, of the Continental Bank as a general creditor, and awarding a recovery against it in favor of the receiver for the full amount of the notes claimed by him to have been converted by it, less about five thousand dollars paid upon drafts of the City Bank upon it after the paper went into its hands. The judgment further provided that the Continental Bank should deliver up the notes or their proceeds to the receiver within thirty days, and that, upon its failure to do so, the judgment against it should be charged against its dividends, and that the receiver should have execution against it for the balance. From this decree the Continental National Bank has brought this appeal.

The first assignment is in substance, that the court erred in deciding that appellant was not entitled to have the amount of the notes sent by it to the City Bank for collection paid in full [495]*495from the assets in the hands of the receiver. The evidence shows that some of these notes, amounting to about five thousand dollars, were collected by the City Bank and were mingled with its funds after being credited to appellant, and that others were renewed, and the renewed paper discounted in New York for account of the City Bank — the proceeds going to pay its debts. The first question to be determined, is whether under the agrément and the course of dealing between the two, the collecting bank is to be decreed the trustee of the funds received by it upon the notes which were paid and of the renewed obligations which were taken in lieu of those which were not paid. Before the trial an agreed statement of facts was signed by the counsel representing the parties and filed among the papers in the case. The agreement appended to the statement is as follows: “The matters and facts set forth in the foregoing eigh: pages are for the purposes of the trial of the above entitled cause admitted to be true and correct and may be read in evidence upon the trial of said cause, the parties thereto reserving the right to introduce such additional evidence not inconsistent with the foregoing as may be desired.” The agreed statement contains the following paragraph: “That in the course of dealings between the City Bank and complainant, the latter was in the habit of discounting notes for the City Bank and of forwarding the same on maturity to the City Bank for collection and return, with an understanding that the proceeds of such discount notes should be preserved by said City Bank as the • property of the complainant and returned to it as such.” The agreement further shows that the notes last referred to were received by the City Bank “for collection and return of proceeds.”

We think these facts settle the question of trust in the affimative. If the securities had been sent for collection merely, the proceeds to be credited to the New York bank, it is clear that after their collection, the relation of debtor and creditor would have subsisted, and the latter would have no claim upon the funds. But by the understanding between the banks and the actual transaction between the parties as shown by the agreed evidence, a special agency was created, and the city bank had no authority to hold and credit the proceeds of the notes, but was bound to remit them immediately to its correspondent. This principle w,as clearly recognized by this court in the case of the City Bank of Sherman v. Weiss, 67 Texas, 331, and is [496]*496sustained by the great weight-of authority as appears from the citations in the opinion in that case.

But it is insisted by counsel for appellee that there is other evidence in the record not inconsistent with the agreement which shows that the relation of debtor and creditor and not that of trustee and cestui que trust was created by the transaction. We think, however that any evidence to show this fact in the face of the explicit statement in the admitted proof would be inconsistent with the agreement, and should have been disregarded by the court, whether objected to or not. But we do not regard the evidence relied on as being in conflict with that in the agreed statement. The receiver who was cashier of the insolvent bank for many years previous to its failure, testified to the effect, that in previous transactions of a like character it had been the habit of his bank to collect and credit the proceeds of the discount notes sent to it for collection. But appellant showed on the other hand, by the testimony of its president, that in discounting paper for its customers at a distance, it was the custom to charge interest after the maturity of the paper to allow for the transmission to it of the proceeds after collection as well as exchange on the amount, and that in order to avoid these chafes the City Bank agreed to keep with the New York Bank sufficient funds to meet the discounts as they matured, and that in all previous transactions this promise had been complied with. As long as the City Bank kept with its correspondent a sufficient sum to cover the amount of the discounted paper as it fell due, it had the right to the proceeds when collected, for it had then virtually taken up the securities.

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Bluebook (online)
6 S.W. 802, 69 Tex. 489, 1888 Tex. LEXIS 885, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/continental-national-bank-v-weems-tex-1888.