State ex rel. Martin v. Farmers & Merchants Bank

139 N.W. 653, 93 Neb. 1, 1913 Neb. LEXIS 30
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 16, 1913
DocketNo. 17,505
StatusPublished

This text of 139 N.W. 653 (State ex rel. Martin v. Farmers & Merchants Bank) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State ex rel. Martin v. Farmers & Merchants Bank, 139 N.W. 653, 93 Neb. 1, 1913 Neb. LEXIS 30 (Neb. 1913).

Opinion

Sedgwick, J.

In 1909 the legislature enacted a statute entitled “An act for the regulation, supervision and control of the business of banking, and to provide penalties for its violation.” Laws 1909, ch. 10. Section 45 provided for statements to the state banking board once in six months showing the average daily deposits for the period subsequent to the next preceding statement, and that the state banking board shall within 30 days after such statement levy assessments thereon, the first four assessments to be one-fourth of one per cent, of the average daily, deposits, and afterwards one-twentieth of one per cent. It was provided that the first statement should be made within 30 days after the act took effect, and the second on the 1st day of December, 1909. Section 4(5 of the act, as originally enacted, provided that as soon as the assessments were made the bank should “set apart, keep and maintain in their said banks the amount thus levied against them,” and that the amount so kept should constitute a “depositors’ guaranty fund,” payable to the state banking fund on demand for the uses and purposes hereinafter provided. Section 47 of the original act provided that if the funds from any cause prior to July 1, 1910, should be reduced to an amount less than one-half of the one per cent, of the average daily deposits, or after that date should be reduced to an amount less than one per cent, of the average daily deposits, a special assessment should be levied to cover such deficiency not exceeding one per cent., of the average daily deposit in any one year. All proceedings under the act were enjoined by the federal courts. The injunctions were continued in force until the supreme court of the United States determined that the act did not violate any provision of the federal constitution. Shallenberger v. First State Bank, 219 U. S. 114. The mandate of the supreme court reversing the decision of the lower court was received and filed in the circuit court on the 30th day of March, 1911. Thereupon the [3]*3legislature of 1911 enacted chapter 8 of the laws of that year, entitled “An act to amend sections * * * 45, 46, 47 and 58 of chapter 8 of the Compiled Statutes of 1909 (being sections 45, 46, 47 of the act of 1909 above quoted, and other sections) * * * and to repeal said original sections * * * as the same now exist, and to declare an emergency.” As amended by the act of 1911, section 45 provides that the first statement should be made on the 1st day of June, 1911, and every six months thereafter, and that the assessment should be made on the first day of the month next succeeding the statement. There was no other change made in the section, except that the proviso hereinafter quoted was added thereto. Section 47, as it now is by the act of 1911, substituted the date July 1, 1912, for July 1, 1910, as it was before the amendment. Otherwise the section is unchanged. Nothing had been done under the act AAdiile its operation was suspended during the litigation in the federal courts, and the plain purpose of the legislature in amending these two sections was to postpone the commencement of proceeding under the act; that is, to make the statute express the result that had already been brought about by the action of the federal court. This respondent, prior to the year 1909, Avas a corporation organized under the laws of this state and doing a. general banking business, and continued until on the 26th day of May, 1911, Avhen it -surrendered its state charter and became a national bank under the act of congress.

In October, 1911, the attorney general began this action in the district court for Burt county to procure a Avrit of mandamus to compel the respondent to file with the state banking board a statement “showing the average daily deposits in the Farmers & Merchants Bank of Oakland, Nebraska, for the six months next preceding the 25th day of June, 1909; for the six months next preceding the 1st day of December, 1909; for the six months next preceding the 1st day of June, 1910; for the six months next preceding the 1st day of December, 1910; and for the period between the 1st day of December, 1910, and the 26th day of May, [4]*41911, exclusive of public money otherwise secured.” The district court refused the writ and dismissed the action, and the relator has appealed.

By the act of 1911 the following proviso was added to section 45: “Provided, however, that if any bank now operating under a charter issued by the state desires to go into voluntary liquidation or change to a national bank before the assessments provided for in this section become due and payable, the provisions of this section shall not release said bank from the payment of any assessments now due from it to the depositors’ guaranty fund as provided for in chapter 8 of the Compiled Statutes for 1909. In the event that any bank now operating under a charter issued by this state voluntarily liquidates or changes to a national bank before, the assessments provided for in this section become due and payable, the provisions of chapter 8 of the Compiled Statutes for 1909, shall, in so far as said banks are concerned, be in full force and effect and shall govern and control, and in the event said bank goes into voluntary liquidation or changes to a national bank before the assessments provided for in this section become due and payable, the provisions of chapter 8 of the Compiled Statutes for 1909 shall be and remain in full force and effect, and the amount due from said bank on the assessment provided for in chapter 8 of the Compiled Statutes for 1909 shall be paid by said bank to the secretary of the banking board; said amount shall be by the. secretary of the banking board placed on deposit to the credit of the depositors’ guaranty fund in any bank to be designated by the secretary of the banking board, said funds to be subject to the order of the banking board.” Also the act of 1911 (Iuavs 1911, sec. 2, p. 85) repealed all of the aforesaid sections “as the same now exist,” and to the repealing clause added the following proviso: “Provided, however, that nothing in this act contained, repealing any part of chapter 8 of the Compiled Statutes for 1909, shall be construed to release any chartered bank in this state that goes into voluntary liquidation or changes [5]*5from a state to a national bank before the assessments provided for in this act become due and payable, and in the event any bank operating under a charter voluntarily liquidates or changes from a state to a national bank before the assessments provided for in this section become due and payable, then the provisions of chapter 8 of the Compiled Statutes for 1909, in so far as they affect said bank, shall be in full force and effect and are not repealed by this repealing clause.” The purpose of these two provisos and the effect thereof, if they • are valid, was to classify state banks, putting those which should continue as state banks after July 1, 1911, into one class, and those which should become national banks or cease to do business as state banks, before that date, into another class, and requiring the one class to pay into the banking fund the amount of all assessments that would have been made under the original act prior to the 1st day of July, 1911, if the operation of that act had not been suspended, and relieving the other class from the obligation to make such payments.

1. The respondent insists that the original sections were entirely repealed by the act of 1911, and that no liability can be predicated thereon; that the provision of section 11, art.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
139 N.W. 653, 93 Neb. 1, 1913 Neb. LEXIS 30, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-martin-v-farmers-merchants-bank-neb-1913.