Hornick, More & Porterfield v. Farmers' & Merchants' Bank

227 N.W. 375, 56 S.D. 18, 82 A.L.R. 16, 1929 S.D. LEXIS 231
CourtSouth Dakota Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 8, 1929
DocketFile No. 6394
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 227 N.W. 375 (Hornick, More & Porterfield v. Farmers' & Merchants' Bank) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering South Dakota Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hornick, More & Porterfield v. Farmers' & Merchants' Bank, 227 N.W. 375, 56 S.D. 18, 82 A.L.R. 16, 1929 S.D. LEXIS 231 (S.D. 1929).

Opinions

F1ULEER, C.

On this appeal numerous assignments of error relate to the action of the trial court in sustaining objections of respondent to testimony offered by appellant. The excluded testimony was in the form of a deposition, and the answers which would have been given, except for the trial court’s ruling, appear in the printed record. As a convenience to a consideration of the probative importance of the excluded proof we shall treat the same as admitted and view the facts as tentatively established according to appellant’s version of the case. .

About November i, 1925, the firm of Sherman & Moe, of Huron, forwarded to appellant, a corporation transacting business at Sioux City, a check for $800. The check was drawn by Sherman & Moe upon its account with the Farmers’ & Merchants’ Bank of Huron, the defendant and respondent herein. Receiving the check on November 2, 1925, at Sioux City, the plaintiff indorsed the same and delivered it to the Sioux National Bank of Sioux City for the specific purposes of collection and remittance of the item. The Sioux City bank indorsed the check and forwarded it by mail to the defendant bank at Huron for payment and remittance as aforesaid. It was the custom of banks, in the trade territory of plaintiff, which included the city of Huron, to make payment of such items, under similar conditions, by the issuance of draft. After receipt of the check, and on November 4, 1925, the ■defendant bank certified the same “paid,” charged the account of [20]*20Sherman & Moe with $800; and credited its account, for the payment of cashier’s checks, with a like sum. As a part of that transaction, the defendant issued and forwarded, to the Sioux National Bank of Sioux City, a cashier’s check for $800. When the cashier’s check was received by the Sioux National Bank, the agent of plaintiff- for the purpose of collecting the original check of Sherman & Moe, the Sioux City bank advised the plaintiff that it had received the cashier’s check, that it was unusual to receive collection in that form, and that it would return the check at once to Huron. It was then considered as most practical to return the cashier’s check, for payment, through the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. This was done, but by the time of the return or presentment of the cashier’s check to the Huron bank it had.suspended operations. A 'few days later a reorganization of the Farmers' & Merchants’ Bank of Huron was accomplished according to the provisions of chapter 104, Laws 1925. The reorganization 'was brought about -by an agreement of the deposit creditors of the bank, representing- more than 80 per cent of its total indebtedness ; and proceedings were taken in the circuit court for the approval and confirmation of the reorganization in accordance with the reorganization law. .The plaintiff, being a corporation nonresident of this state, did not participate in the reorganization agreement or in the court proceedings in relation to reorganization. According to the reorganization plan, creditors, such as the holders of cashier’s checks, were obliged to receive, in lieu thereof, certificates of deposit in the reorganized bank for a certain percentage of their claims, and certificates of certain trustees, representing the balance of their claims, which certificates were payable from the ultimate liquidation of a part of the assets of the bank which were conveyed to' the trustees as part of the plan of reorganization. Plaintiff refused to- accept the certificates when the same were tendered, and commenced action by complaint which set forth the transaction above stated. The plaintiff asserts that by charging the $800 check to. the account of Sherman & Moe the defendant bank received “the proceeds” of the check; that it retained the same for the purposes of “augmenting- and swelling” its assets; that the assets turned over to the superintendent of banks included the aforementioned sum of $800; and that, when the bank reorganized, the same was “wrongfully assumed to belong to the assets of the [21]*21bank’’ and was redelivered into the possession and control of defendant. By clear inference and repeated specific allegation the complaint alleges a trust ex maleficio and appears to seek a return to plaintiff of trust funds wrongfully withheld: by. defendant. Virtually all of the assignments of error relate to the exclusion of testimony which, if admitted, would establish that the issuance of the cashier’s check and the retention of the sum of $800 by defendants was wrongful and inconsistent with the known intention of plaintiff to have the Sherman & Moe check paid, when it was presented.

The answer denies any trust relation between the parties or the existence-of any trust fund. The answer alleges that plaintiff, by reason of the transaction pleaded, became a deposit creditor of the defendant bank; and the fact and procedure of reorganization is specially pleaded upon the theory "that plaintiff was bound-by the terms and conditions thereof. The defendant bank alleged that plaintiff had been duly tendered the certificates of deposit and the trustees’ certificates, above mentioned, and the proffer was renewed' in the answer.

Appellant, the plaintiff below, entirely failed in its attempt to prove facts essential to- the establishment of the alleged trust. When the Sherman & Moe check was presented for payment at defendant' bank, and the amount thereof was charged to the account of the drawer, the assets of the bank were in no sense augmented and increased. The Sherman & Moe account was debited $800, and account of cashier’s' checks for the day was credited a sum which included! the amount of this item. It is the claim of plaintiff that, when plaintiff’s check was presented to defendant bank, it should have received payment by means of customary draft or otherwise; and that, since the issuance of the cashier’s check and the retention of the fund of $800 by defendant was wrongful, the plaintiff became equitably entitled to that fund. But no fund, in a sense of new and additional money, came into the control or possession of the bank in this case. A transaction with the bank by' which the account of one -depositor is charged for or debited with the amount of check and another account is given a corresponding credit does not augment or increase the assets of the bank, and does not bring into existence a fund of money to-which a trust may attach. Beard v. Independent School District [22]*22(C. C. A.) 88 F. 375, 382; Empire State Surety Co. v. Carroll County (C. C. A. 8th Cir.) 194 F. 593, 606; Milligan v. First State Bank (S. D.) 226 N. W. 747.

Further, if it were to be assumed, with appellant, that the sum of $800, as distinguished from a mere bookkeeping credit, came into the possession and control of defendant bank as alleged, the plaintiff, attempting to establish its right of recovery as a cestui que trust, would have the affirmative burden of tracing the sum into a specific fund or property and of tracing- and identifying that fund or property into the possession of defendant at the time of suit. The theory of all applicable trust cases is that title to the money, acquired from the claimant by the wrong or deception of the bank, did not pass to the bank; that the claimant is, in effect, recovering-his own converted property or the proceeds thereof. Thoug-h the converted property may be identified to the point of its wrongful receipt by the bank, there can yet toe no presumption that it remained in the bank’s general assets to the time of suspension and that it passed to the hands of the bank’s receiver or successor.

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Bluebook (online)
227 N.W. 375, 56 S.D. 18, 82 A.L.R. 16, 1929 S.D. LEXIS 231, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hornick-more-porterfield-v-farmers-merchants-bank-sd-1929.