McRoberts v. Spaulding

32 F.2d 315, 1929 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1182
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Iowa
DecidedMarch 29, 1929
Docket4346
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 32 F.2d 315 (McRoberts v. Spaulding) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McRoberts v. Spaulding, 32 F.2d 315, 1929 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1182 (S.D. Iowa 1929).

Opinion

DEWEY, District Judge.

This is a suit brought against certain director’s' of the Merchants’ National Bank of Grinnell, Iowa, seeking recovery for loss alleged to have been sustained by the bank on account of negligently loaning money of the bank to parties claimed to have been insolvent at the time of such loans, and to recover on the alleged charge of loans made which were excessive under the prohibition of section 5200, U. S. R. S. (12 USCA § 84).

The bank was incorporated in the year 1883, and, at the time the loans complained of were made, had a paid up capital stock of $100,000, and an unimpaired surplus of $100,000. And as far as the excess loans were concerned, the case was tried upon the theory that the largest amount which the bank could legally loan to any one person was $20,000. The bank was taken over by the Comptroller of the Currency November 1, 1924. ■

The common-law negligence, as charged against the defendants, is based, as has been said, upon the claim that the parties to whom money was loaned were insolvent. The difficulty in the claim of the plaintiff in this regard is the uncertainty of values during the years from 1921 to 1924, which was the very heart of a period of deflation of farm land values and values of all kinds in Iowa.

The evidence shows, and the court will take judicial notice of, the banking situation, and the method and manner of' its conduct prior to the deflation period, which started about the year 1920. The surety for country banks in Iowa and the basis of credit is real estate. From the time of the Civil War up to the year 1920, real estate in Iowa had a standard and fixed valuation, increasing gradually, and a person engaged in farming in Iowa prior to 1920, if honest and industrious, was worthy of credit. And the banks in Iowa generally loaned such individuals money or extended them credit, based upon the amount of property which they owned; and if the borrowers had real estate, upon the amount or equity in the real estate owned by such individual borrower.

At about the time of the breaking out of, the World War in 1914, farming operations in Iowa became very profitable, and during the period of the war there was a gradual advance in prices, and Iowa was rich and prosperous. After the close of the war this prosperity took on a turn of speculation, which continued to grow and expand until the Federal Reserve Bank finally decided to stop the speculation by demanding the withdrawal of its loans. From this time there was started in Iowa a period of depression and panic which depreciated the value of all property and caused real estate values to decline, making their true value uncertain, and so reduced, that farms were considered' as having the value of a conservative first mortgage.

As shown by the evidence, when this pe *317 riod of depression started in 1920, and during the time until the closing of this bank, November 1, 1924, it was generally thought by bankers and business men that the period of depression was temporary, and that values of real estate, which during that time were uncertain, would soon reach a stability that would enable business to again be transacted as before upon sound real estate values.

In retrospection it is easy to criticize the actions of the officers of the two or three hundred banks in Iowa that failed, with being derelict in their duties and making improvident loans, and yet, daring all of the period in which it is charged that these defendants were negligent in making loans to individuals that were insolvent, the banking department of the state of Iowa was encouraging banks to remain open, having their directors sign guaranties of bank loans, and using every effort to maintain the former business relations, in the hope and expectation that such values would again become sound and substantial, and thus prevent the closing of banks with resultant loss to stockholders and creditors.

We are not here considering an ordinary bank failure caused by the mismanagement of the directors, but a situation that was caused by extraneous circumstances and conditions that could not be foreseen and the extent of which reasonable men could not at the time anticipate. And where bank officers, as in this case, made every reasonable effort to prevent the failure of their bank, they should not be criticized.

As shown by the testimony, other banks were following the same procedure as followed by the directors and officers in this case. It is stated in the case of Lyon v. Featherman, 80 Mont. 504, 512, 261 P. 268, 271: A director “cannot be held liable for losses on loans made in good faith at a time when any reasonably prudent banker would consider” them “for the best interest of the bank,” even though in looking hack they appear not to have been so. Directors are not liable for lawful loans made in good faith, although the making thereof was an error in judgment. 7 C. J. 790; Curtis v. Metcalf (D. C.) 259 F. 963.

The question of improvident loans is not what some one else might think about a loan, but the question is what the directors in making the loans thought, and the method and motive by which they were controlled in their actions.

Testing the actions of the directors in this ease by the above rules, and the facts and circumstances surrounding them at the time, this court cannot say that the directors were negligent in making the loans that they did make, and which are charged in the petition as. having been made improvidently and carelessly by such directors.

The difficult question involved in the ease is not that of common-law liability for negligence, but the charge that the defendants had knowledge of and assented to certain loans to individuals and a partnership which, in each case, were in excess of the limit which the banking laws of the United States permit any bank to loan to a person or partnership.

The loans which are charged to have been excessive and made in violation of section. 5200, U. S. R. S., are as against five lines: (1) The J. E. Stewart and Louella Stewart loans; (2) the M. E.- Sturgeon and Sadie Sturgeon loans; (3) the Ralph Sherman loans; (4) the John Puls loans; (5) the loans to the McEate and Roberts partnership, composed of Harvey McEate and Glenn A. Roberts.

The charge here is that the directors knowingly and willfully permitted loans to be made in each of the lines above enumerated in excess of that permitted by the laws relating to national banks. The National Bank Acts in force at the time of the transactions herein involved, section 5200 U. S. R. S. (12 USCA § 84), provides: “The total liabilities to any association of any person or of any company, corporation, or firm for money borrowed, including in the liabilities of a company or firm the liabilities of the several members thereof, shall at no time exceed ten per centum of the amount of the capital stock of such association, actually paid in and unimpaired, and 10 per centum of its unimpaired surplus fund.”

And the statute then provides that the discount of certain paper by such association, where such paper is secured by certain existing values, shall not be considered as money borrowed within the meaning of the statute.

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Bluebook (online)
32 F.2d 315, 1929 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1182, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcroberts-v-spaulding-iasd-1929.