Marshall v. Citizens & Southern National Bank

187 S.E. 240, 54 Ga. App. 123, 1936 Ga. App. LEXIS 470
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedJuly 10, 1936
Docket25277
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 187 S.E. 240 (Marshall v. Citizens & Southern National Bank) 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
Marshall v. Citizens & Southern National Bank, 187 S.E. 240, 54 Ga. App. 123, 1936 Ga. App. LEXIS 470 (Ga. Ct. App. 1936).

Opinion

Stephens, J.

The Citizens and Southern National Bank, as guardian of the property of Julian W. Marshall, filed in the court of ordinary its petition in which it alleged that the ward had come of age; and that it had faithfully administered the trust, and was ready to make a final return and to turn over to the ward all money and property belonging to him. It prayed for citation to issue for settlement of its accounts as guardian, and for letters of dismission from the guardianship. To the citation the defendant filed an answer objecting to the allowance of commissions and to the discharge of the guardian until a full accounting had been made with its ward. The substance of the material allegations of the answer was, that the bank, as guardian of the ward’s property, had tendered to him five bonds of a church for $1082.50 each, due in 1948, with coupons attached, and five first-mortgage bonds of a college for $1000 each, due in 1948, with coupons attached; that said bonds were not the equivalent of cash, and if the bank purchased them the purchase was unauthorized by law, and the retention of them was illegal; that if they were purchased as alleged, it was without notice to him, without the appointment of a guardian ad litem to represent him, without notice to or service on his next of kin, without notice to the guardian of his person, and without authority of a proper order from the judge of the superior court; that he reached his majority on January 9, 1935, and was entitled to the amount paid for the bonds in cash, with interest from the date of purchase; that the commissions charged by the bank in its final return should not be allowed, for the reason that as guardian it had failed to perform its duty to the ward, in that it had failed, after repeated requests, to furnish sufficient funds to pay, during the months of 'March, April, and May, 1933, the tuition and board of the ward at the Citadel, a school in Charleston, S. C., in which the ward had enrolled, or to furnish him with the necessary school expenses for his maintenance and education, and he was obliged to discontinue [125]*125his education at the Citadel, by the failure of the guardian to furnish the necessary funds, although according to the return of said guardian for 1932 it transferred on April 4, 1932, $565.31 from income account to corpus account, which sum could have been made available for the purpose of paying the ward’s education and maintenance at the Citadel; that the five church bonds now tendered to him were not the bonds originally bought, but the bank, which was trustee of these bonds, was also a creditor of the church for a sum in excess of $13,000, and the substituted bonds were materially different from the bonds originally held, in that the rate of interest was reduced from 5-1/2 per cent, to 4 per cent, for the first five years and 4-1/2 per cent, for the second five years, and whereas under the original bonds the debtor church was to take up annually a certain number of these bonds, under the substituted bonds the entire issue was to run for 15 years, and although the original bonds were first-mortgage bonds, under the new arrangement it was permitted that certain unsecured creditors, of which the bank was one, should be paid their unsecured claims before the maturity of the entire bond issue, and said exchange of bonds was without any authority whatever, was to the disadvantage of the ward and to the interest of the bank, and was contrary to the fiduciary relationship which the bank occupied; that the five college bonds were part of an issue of $1,000,000, in the mortgage securing which the bank was one of the designated trustees, and the purchase and retention of these bonds by the. bank were antagonistic to the interest of the ward, the guardian occupying a dual position of" trustee of the bonds and guardian of the property of the ward, and said investment was contrary to the obligations of its trust and of the fiduciary relationship which it occupied.

The bank demurred generally and on several special grounds. The defendant amended his answer, alleging that the college bonds and the church bonds were purchased without any legal order of the judge of the superior court, but if any order was signed by the judge of the superior court it was without any notice or service on him, a minor over fourteen years of age, and without any notice or service on his next of kin, and without any notice or service on the guardian of his person, and if any order was granted it was without the appointment of a guardian ad litem to repre[126]*126sent him, and was granted on an application for the investment of trust funds in which he was interested, besides the applicant, without notice to him or accounting for its absence; that he has never had his day in court, nor has he had any notice of any proceeding authorizing the original investment in the church bonds or the college bonds, nor has he had any notice of any proceeding authorizing the change of the investment, or the reinvestment of the church bonds; that if any order of court authorizing the exchange of church bonds was obtained, it was obtained without the knowledge of the court that the bank was an unsecured creditor of the church in the sum of $13,150, and without the knowledge of the court that the extension of the maturity of the bonds would be to the decided advantage of the bank, in that it might collect its unsecured debt, which it could not have done if the bank, which was also trustee under the church-bond issue, had insisted on the rights of the bondholders requiring the church to live up to its original bond obligation; that the exchange of church bonds was to the present advantage of the bank and to the detriment of its ward, and the bank occupied inconsistent and antagonistic positions with reference to the college bonds and the church bonds, and in exchanging the church bonds dealt with the property of the ward for its own personal benefit, permitting the ward’s estate to suffer in order that it might have an. opportunity to repay to itself its unsecured debt due by the church, which fact was not made known to the court when it exchanged the bonds; that the dual position at times, and the triple position at other times, held by the petitioner disqualified it from handling the estate of its ward, and the purchases by it in this situation where there was a loss should be made good to the ward before it is discharged from its trust. It was further alleged that the bank as guardian purchased the college bonds from its subsidiary, the Citizens and Southern Company, which handled approximately $166,000 of the bonds, making a gross profit of $55 on the sale of each bond and a gross profit of $8821.47 on the bonds handled, and the Citizens and Southern Company made a profit of approximately $250 which ultimately went to the stockholders of the bank in dividends; that the Citizens and Southern Company made out of handling the five college bonds sold to itself as guardian a profit of $250 which ultimately went to the stockholders of [127]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
187 S.E. 240, 54 Ga. App. 123, 1936 Ga. App. LEXIS 470, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/marshall-v-citizens-southern-national-bank-gactapp-1936.