Maytag Co. v. State ex rel. Barnett

170 Okla. 480
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedFebruary 5, 1935
DocketNo. 25586
StatusPublished

This text of 170 Okla. 480 (Maytag Co. v. State ex rel. Barnett) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Maytag Co. v. State ex rel. Barnett, 170 Okla. 480 (Okla. 1935).

Opinion

WELCH, J.

In this case the question occurs on the asserted right to a preferred claim against the assets of the Drumright State Bank, a failed bank in the hands of the State Bank Commissioner.

The facts are the Maytag Company of Newton, Iowa, shipped a car of merchan- • dise to Drumright, Okla., sending the bill of lading to the Drumright State Bank to be delivered when the bank collected $9,-111.40, for immediate remittance to the Maytag Company.

E. L. Thomas, of Drumright, a depositor in the bank, with ample funds on deposit in his account, on August 9, 1932, took up the bill of lading, directing- the bank to charge the item to his account, which the banker told him he would do. The bank delivered Thomas the bill of lading, charged the amount to tlie deposit account on the books of the bank, and executed its draft on a Tulsa bank payable to the Maytag Company, less collection charges of $10, and mailed the draft for $9,101.40 to the Maytag Company.

Before the draft could be cleared, while it was in transit, and on August 13, 1932, the Drumright State Bank was closed and the Bank Commissioner took charge, and the draft was not paid.

An agent for the Maytag Company at once called on Mr. Thomas and advised him that payment for the bill of lading had not been received, and he immediately, without knowledge of the facts, thinking that he still owed the company for the bill of lading, and desiring to preserve his credit with the Maytag Company, paid the Maytag Company ihe amount of the item, $9,111.40. Thereafter Thomas learned the true facts, and that the Maytag Company had no right to collect the money from him the second time; that he had paid this money to the [482]*482company on a mistake of fact without any legal obligation to do so, and he demanded the return of his money from the company. This demand was not complied with nor finally refused, but Thomas and the company seem to have undertaken to cooperate in the matter of presenting claim against the assets of the bank.

Two or three months after Thomas paid this money to the company, at a conference between the Maytag Company and Mr. Thomas, the company indorsed and delivered to Mr. Thomas the draft issued by the Drumright Bank, the purpose apparently being to bring about the filing of proper claim against the assets of the Drumright Bank.

Immediately thereafter Thomas presented the draft to the authority in charge of the assets of the bank, and filed a claim which, however, was prepared in the form of a common, not a preferred claim, which was at once approved by the liquidating agent and Bank Commissioner. It is suggested that such form of clahn was filed inadvertently, in that failure to file a preferred claim resulted from lack of knowledge of the rights existing.

Thereafter, on December 12, a preferred claim was filed for the amount of the draft by the Maytag Sales Corporation, which was at once disallowed by the liquidating agent and Bank Commiss’'oner. It is suggested in one of the briefs that the form of this cJaim was a letter, but it was written at length and in much detail, and appears to have been presented, received, arid acted upon as a preferred claim without regard to the technical form. When this claim was presented Mr. Thomas requested permission to withdraw his common claim, but that permission was denied.

In February, 1933, the Maytag Company asked and obtained permission of the Bank Commissioner to amend the claim theretofore filed- December 12th. That claim had erroneously used the name Maytag Sales Corporation in lieu of the correct name, Maytag Company, and to cure that error an amendment was made, and thereupon the amended or corrected claim of the Maytag Company was, in February, 1933, disallowed by the Bank Commissioner.

The Maytag Conrpany then instituted this equitable action in the district court of Creek county seeking to be adjudged a preferred creditor or claimant against the Drumright State Bank in the sum of the draft, and thereafter E. L. Thomas intervened seeking that if for any reason judgment should not' be entered in favor of the Maytag Company, then that he, by reason of the foregoing facts, be adjudged entitled to a preferred claim against the bank to the amount of the draft.

The action was resisted by the Bank Commissioner, and the trial court denied the petition and refused to decree the right to a preferred claim.

It is shown that on the dates mentioned, the Drumright bank had on hand much more than sufficient cash to cover the involved item,- and had on deposit with the Tulsa bank more than sufficient money to pay the draft, and that when the Bank Commissioner took charge of the closed bank there came into his hands, among the assets of the bank, more than sufficient cash to cover the involved item.

The facts in this case clearly indicate that originally the Maytag Company was entitled to a preferred claim against the assets of the closed bank. That is settled by the former decision of this court in sim ilar cases. ' It is unnecessary to quote from those cases, so we merely cite them with the statement that they are controlling on this point. See Kansas Flour Mills Co. v. New State Bank of Woodward et al., 124 Okla. 185, 256 P. 43; Thomas v. Mothersead, State Bank Com’r, 128 Okla. 157, 261 P. 363; First State Bank of Bristow et al. v. O’Bannon, 130 Okla. 206, 266 P. 472; State ex rel. Mothersead, State Bank Com’r, v. Excello Feed Milling Co. of St. Joseph, Mo., 131 Okla. 100, 267 P. 833; El Reno Mill & Elevator Co. v. Shull, Bank Com’r, et al., 167 Okla. 444, 30 P. (2d) 470.

But the defendant contends that the facts show that the right of the Maytag Company to a preferred claim was waived, or that the company should be estopped to claim a preference. And to support that contention the defendant relies on the fact of the second, payment of $9,111.40, made by Thomas direct to the company, and the fact of the indorsement 'and delivery to Thomas of the draft drawn and sent to the company by the bank.

Thomas did make the payment to the Company, but he did - so under a mistake of fact. He had already paid for the bill of lading. When the bank, with his authority, charged the amount of the item to his bank account and made its remittance to the Maytag Company, then certainly so [483]*483far as Thomas was concerned the bill of lading was paid for. While Thomas had authorized the bank to do that, he did not know that the bank had done so. The bank was closed, and while Thomas had in fact already paid for the bill of lading, he did not know that he had done so, and therefore he paid it again. In view of these facts it could hardly be argued that the Maytag Company had any real right to retain the money paid it by Thomas. Nor can it be successfully contended that such payment by Thomas operated to discharge the obligation of the bank to the Maytag Company. In 48 C. J. 720, it is said:

“Evidence of payment by a third person is inadmissible, unless it is also shown it was made for the debtor and accepted by the creditor as payment.”

And in 3 Elliott on Contracts, page 84, par. 1928, is found this statement:

“And where the payment by a third person was not intended by the payor and creditor to operate as a discharge, the debt- or cannot, ordinarily at least, take advantage of it as such.”

See, also, Bradley & Metcalf Co. v. McLaughlin, 87 Okla. 34, 208 P. 1032, and Wallingford v. Alcorn, 75 Okla. 295, 183 P. 726.

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Related

Thomas v. Mothersead
1927 OK 228 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1927)
State Ex Rel. Mothersead v. Excello Feed Milling Co.
1928 OK 29 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1928)
First State Bank of Bristow v. O'Bannon
1928 OK 241 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1928)
Bradley & Metcalf Co. v. McLaughlin
1922 OK 204 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1922)
Hughes v. Sparks
1924 OK 374 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1924)
Wallingford v. Alcorn
1919 OK 250 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1919)
El Reno Mill & Elevator Co. v. Shull
1934 OK 138 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1934)
Tidal Oil Company v. Flanagan
1922 OK 115 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1922)
Kansas Flour Mills Co. v. New State Bank of Woodward
1926 OK 561 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1926)

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Bluebook (online)
170 Okla. 480, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/maytag-co-v-state-ex-rel-barnett-okla-1935.