Shumway v. Department of Banking

267 N.W. 469, 131 Neb. 246, 1936 Neb. LEXIS 204
Procedural entryThis page is a short order in Shumway v. Department of Banking. Read the opinion of the Court — 130 Neb. 491
Nebraska Supreme Court·Decided June 12, 1936·No. No. 29464·Published

Opinion

Paine, J.

Interveners filed claim for $9,571.12 against assets of the Farmers Bank of Lyons. The receiver thereof classified it only as a general claim. Upon appeal to the district court, it was decreed to be a trust fund, payable in full as a first preferred lien out of the assets of the insolvent bank. The department of banking appealed.

This case was first argued to division No. 1 of this court on December 2, 1935, and an opinion entered, which is found in 130 Neb. 491, 265 N. W. 553, which opinion, released February 28, 1936, is hereby withdrawn by this court. The oral argument on the motion for rehearing was allowed on May 18, 1936, to the full court.

The evidence discloses that financial difficulties overtook the Farmers Bank of Lyons, Burt county, Nebraska, [247] on January 6, 1933, and it was taken over as insolvent by the department of banking of the state of Nebraska on January 7, 1933, and did not, at any time after said date, open its doors and operate as a going concern, but remained in charge of the department of banking, and with its doors closed, until May 20, 1933. The provisions were then complied with, under which an insolvent bank might be allowed to reopen for the sole purpose of doing a “limited banking business,” in strict accordance with House Roll No. 167, Laws 1933, ch. 16 (Comp. St. Supp. 1933, sec. 8-1,121), which had become a law on February 1, 1933, under its emergency clause. As so reopened, it was still an insolvent bank. No cash reserve was required. This restricted operation continued until October 30, 1933, when the bank was declared insolvent and formal liquidation commenced. Solvency of the bank was never restored after the original closing on January 7, 1933, under section 8-116, Comp. St. 1929, reading in part: “A banking corporation subject to the provisions of this article shall be deemed to be insolvent when the actual cash market value of its assets is insufficient to pay its liabilities to its depositors, or when it is unable to meet the demands of its creditors in the usual and customary manner, or when it shall fail to make good its reserve as required by law, or when the stockholders, upon notice from the department of trade and commerce or its successor, shall fail to make good an impairment of its capital.”

The testimony shows that the bank had made written application on May 3, 1932, to become depository for the funds of the village of Lyons, and the trustees of said "village named the bank as its depository and accepted $13,000 of securities of the bank as collateral to a personal bond of the officers of the bank in the sum of $15,000 as full security for the village deposits. Later a new bond was furnished by the bank in the sum of $20,000, signed by Helen Shumway and Clara A. Christiansen as sureties, and the securities which had been previously [248] pledged to the village were transferred to these two sureties for their protection on the personal surety bond they had given for the bank. On June 1, 1932, the board of trustees accepted and approved the new bond, and the village treasurer continued to deposit and withdraw funds from said account until the bank was taken over as insolvent on January 7, 1933, at which time the village had on deposit in such checking account the sum of $16,965.77, secured by the depository bond of the interveners and appellees, who were protected by the securities they had received for signing the bond.

While the bank was closed and in possession of the department of banking, and before it had been permitted to reopen under restrictions, the village board brought action on the bond of the interveners for the amount of the deposit of the village. The sureties and interveners confessed judgment upon condition that no execution would issue against them if they would make a $5,000 payment on September 1, 1933, another payment September 1, 1934, and the balance September 1, 1935, which agreement was approved by the village trustees May 2, 1933, and a judgment was entered by the district court against the sureties on May 12, 1933. The deposit of the village was assigned to the sureties; that is, the .village deposit was to be closed out and an account opened in the name of the two sureties for exactly the same amount. The sureties took whatever interest the village had in its deposit which had been otherwise secured.

The sureties sold the securities which had been pledged to them by the bank, and received $7,199.33 upon securities which had a face value of about $13,000. This amount was paid to the village to reduce the liability on the judgment, and the deposit in the bank thereby was reduced to $9,766.44.

Helen Shumway and Clara A. Christiansen, sureties, filed a petition in intervention on March 21, 1934, alleging that the village of Lyons wrongfully and unlawfully deposited funds of said village with said bank, contrary [249] to the statutes of Nebraska; that said bank did not apply for the privilege of becoming a depository, and that the village board did not designate nor approve said bank as a depository, and that said bank paid no interest on such deposits, and that the village treasurer was without authority to make a general deposit of funds in said bank, and that the said village had a preferred claim for such trust funds against the assets of the bank. On May 12, 1933, the said village duly assigned to the interveners its claim against the bank, and interveners allege that the receiver erroneously refused to classify the claim as a claim for trust funds, and erroneously classified it as a general claim, and they ask that the action of the receiver be set aside, and that they be given a valid preferred claim in the sum of $9,571.12.

The superintendent of banks filed an answer thereto, and insists that said claim was properly classified for the reason that it was a claim based upon a deposit which was otherwise secured under section 8-1,102, Comp. St. Supp. 1933, and alleges that on January 7, 1933, the said village of Lyons had a general checking account, which was secured by a bond, and that the principal on said depository bond was the bank, and the two sureties thereon were the two interveners herein, and that to protect said interveners as sureties on said bond the bank pledged for their protection certain securities, the face value thereof being some $13,000 ; that from the sale thereof the sureties realized only the amount of $7,199.33, which, upon being applied to the reduction of the deposit of the village in said bank, left a balance due the village from the sureties in the sum of $9,766.44, upon which amount two dividends of one per cent, have been paid to the sureties, leaving a net balance due thereon of $9,571.12.

The trial court decided against the banking department, and decreed that the interveners had a claim for trust funds in the full sum of $9,571.12, with interest at 6 per cent., and directed that the same was entitled to priority payment from the assets of the bank before the claims [250] of unsecured depositors were paid, from which order an appeal was taken to this court.

A number of errors are set out, but the errors in the findings of the district court that the bank was not legally appointed the village depository, and that said funds were unlawfully mingled with the general assets of said bank, and that the bank had become a trustee as to such deposits, are argued at length.

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Shumway v. Department of Banking, 267 N.W. 469, 131 Neb. 246, 1936 Neb. LEXIS 204 (Neb. 1936).

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