Sneeden v. Industrial Commission

10 N.E.2d 327, 366 Ill. 552
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedJune 11, 1937
DocketNo. 24007. Judgment affirmed.
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 10 N.E.2d 327 (Sneeden v. Industrial Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sneeden v. Industrial Commission, 10 N.E.2d 327, 366 Ill. 552 (Ill. 1937).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Herrick

delivered the opinion of the court:

This cause is here on writ of error granted by this court to review a judgment of the circuit court of Williamson county confirming an award granted by the Industrial Commission under the Workmen’s Compensation act, in favor of the defendant in error, Richard Grasty, herein called the employee.

On December 31, 1932, the Comptroller of the Currency appointed Ben Sneeden as receiver of the First National Bank of Herrin. The receiver immediately took possession of all the assets of the bank. Among these were several tracts of improved real estate. They consisted of the two-story bank building, the first floor of which was occupied by the banking room and a store room and the second floor by offices; a business building, wherein was conducted a dyeing and cleaning enterprise, the post-office building, several dwellings and some farm lands, and a store building known as the Ellis building, where the employee was injured. At the time of the closing of the bank, most of the properties were occupied by tenants. The receiver, in the course of his duties, collected the rents accruing. These were paid into the assets of the defunct bank and constituted a portion of the fund out of which was paid the current expenses of receivership and dividends to the bank’s creditors. Such repairs were made on the several buildings as the receiver deemed necessary, different repairs having been made on the Ellis property by him. The bank owned a note secured by a mortgage on the Ellis property. It was a frame, one-story store building, with a projecting porch facing the business street on which it was located. Under the mortgage provisions, the receiver took possession of these premises and collected the accrued rents, from time to time, from a tenant who had leased the premises from the bank prior to the time of the receivership, the tenant continuing under the receiver. The last rents were collected on March 21, 1934. About this date the tenant vacated the property. Shortly prior to May 17, 1934, the fire marshal’s office served a written notice on the receiver that the condition of the building was very bad, and to make certain repairs and replacements thereon. While there is a dispute in the evidence as to just what was said relative to the hiring of Grasty, the evidence tends to prove, and apparently the commission found, that the receiver went to Bob Stotlar, who operated a lumber yard near the Ellis property, and asked him to get a man to tear down the porch on the front of the building. The receiver’s purpose in removing the porch was to comply, in part, with the fire marshal’s notice. The result of the conference was that Stotlar, for the receiver, employed Grasty to take down the porch on the basis of two hours’ time at seventy-five cents per hour. The material was to be stored in the building. On that evening Grasty started the work. During the course of his labor he was struck in the left eye by a wooden splinter, the injury resulting in industrial blindness. The Industrial Commission awarded him the amount of his physician’s bill, $47.50, compensation at $11.54 per week for five and four-sevenths weeks for temporary total incapacity, and a like weekly sum for 120 weeks for industrial blindness.

The major issue for decision is whether a receiver of a national bank, who, in the course of his receivership, is maintaining a building and has an employee who receives an injury arising out of and in the course of his employment while working on such building, can be held liable for compensation under the Workmen’s Compensation act of this State.

The receiver’s position on that issue may be summarized as follows: (1) A receiver of a national bank is a Federal officer, commissioned by the Comptroller of the Currency, and therefore not amenable to a local law; (2) the Workmen’s Compensation law of this State interferes with and frustrates the powers and duties of the receiver, as limited by the National Banking act; ( 3) a national bank receiver has no power under the National Banking act, in the liquidation of the bank, to engage in business, as engaging in business is defined by such Workmen’s Compensation act; (4) by reason of the foregoing, the Industrial Commission did not have jurisdiction of the receiver and was without authority to grant the award in question.

The Federal Code provides that all national banking associations shall, for the purpose of actions, real, personal or mixed, and all suits in equity by or against them, be deemed citizens of the State in which such banks are respectively located, (U. S. C. A. Judicial Code and Judiciary, title 28, sec. 41, subd. 16, p. 609.) By the act of 1882, (subd. 16, supra,) a national bank cannot remove a cause wherein it is defendant in a suit brought in a State court merely because the bank is incorporated under .the Federal statute. (Leather Manfrs. Nat. Bank v. Cooper, 128 U. S. 778, 30 L. ed. 816; Whittemore v. Amoskeag Nat. Bank, 134 U. S. 527, 33 L. ed. 1002; Ex parte Jones, 164 U. S. 691, 41 L. ed. 601.) It follows that the bank, being a citizen of the State where it is located, must be subject to its laws in so far as they do not undertake to regulate its business as a bank. A bank continues to exist as a legal entity notwithstanding the appointment of a receiver therefor, (First Nat. Bank of Bethel v. The Nat. Pahquioque Bank, 14 Wall. 383, 20 L. ed. 840,) and so a receiver of a national bank is invested with all the rights of the creditors of the bank, as well as the rights of the corporation. (Brown v. Schleier, 114 U. S. 18, 48 L. ed. 857.) Obviously, if invested with the rights of the bank and its creditors, he must also be burdened with the responsibilities incurred in the due course of the administration of the bank’s affairs, including the legal assumption by him of the citizenship of the bank for the purpose of suing and being sued.

Section 3 of the Illinois Workmen’s Compensation act provides that the terms of the act shall apply automatically and without election, among others, to any body politic and to “all employers and all their employees, engaged in any department of the following enterprises or businesses which are declared to be extra-hazardous, namely: (1) The erection, maintaining, removing, remodeling, altering or demolishing of any structure, except as provided in sub-paragraph 8 of this section.” (State Bar Stat. 1935, chap. 48, p. 1590.) Sub-paragraph 8 is the one which exempts farmers from the provisions of the act. Section 4 states: “The term ‘employer’ as used in this act shall be construed to be: * * * Second: Every person, firm, public or private corporation * * * who has any person in service or under any contract for hire, express or implied, oral or written, and who is engaged in any of the enterprises or businesses enumerated in section three (3) of this act,” etc.

There is no question in the record but that the bank, at the time it closed its doors, had theretofore lawfully acquired the real estate. The receiver is the representative of the bank. The assets in his custody are subject to all claims and defenses that might have been made against the bank. Such notice or knowledge which the bank may have had which affect the character of the assets are imputed to him. (Scott v. Armstrong, Receiver, 146 U. S.

Related

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402 N.E.2d 992 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 1980)
Fulton v. Knight
104 N.E.2d 554 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1952)
Iowa-Illinois Gas & Electric Co. v. Industrial Commission
95 N.E.2d 482 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1950)
Brooks v. Smith
41 So. 2d 800 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1949)
County of Christian v. Industrial Commission
63 N.E.2d 515 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1945)
Carroll v. Social Security Board
128 F.2d 876 (Seventh Circuit, 1942)
Goff v. Will County National Building Corp.
35 N.E.2d 718 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1941)

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10 N.E.2d 327, 366 Ill. 552, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sneeden-v-industrial-commission-ill-1937.