State Ex Rel. Sanders v. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co.

143 S.W.2d 483, 235 Mo. App. 729, 1940 Mo. App. LEXIS 89
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJuly 1, 1940
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 143 S.W.2d 483 (State Ex Rel. Sanders v. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State Ex Rel. Sanders v. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co., 143 S.W.2d 483, 235 Mo. App. 729, 1940 Mo. App. LEXIS 89 (Mo. Ct. App. 1940).

Opinion

*733 SHAIN, P. J.

This is a suit brought against the surety on a bond. The court sustained defendant’s general demurrer to the petition. The relator refused to plead further and judgment went against her dismissing her action. She has appealed.

The petition is replete with allegations of fraud and misrepresentations with little statement of facts to support them. Stripped of conclusions of law the petition alleges that A. B. Collins & Company, Inc., was a securities dealer or broker in Kansas City, and as such was required by the State Securities Act, Chapter 40, Revised Statutes 1929, to furnish a bond “running to the people of the State of Missouri, conditioned upon the said A. B. Collins & Company, Inc., properly accounting for all moneys or securities received from or belonging to another, and upon the faithful compliance with the provisions of the ‘Missouri Securities Act’ by said dealer and by all salesmen registered by it or acting for it;” that on the 31st day of December, 1934, A. B. Collins & Company, Inc., entered into a bond “unto the people of the State of Missouri” in the sum of $5000, with defendant as surety, reciting that A." B. Collins & Company, Inc., had made application to the Secretary of State for registration as a dealer in securities within this State, pursuant to the provisions of the Missouri Securities Act and was about to be registered as such dealer; that “Now, Therefore, if the said A. B. Collins & Company, Inc., as such dealer, and all salesmen registered by and while acting for said dealer, shall faithfully comply with the provisions of the ‘Missouri Securities Act,’ and shall properly account for all moneys or securities received from or belonging to another, then this obligation to be void, otherwise to be and remain in full force and effect.

“This bond, under the provisions of the ‘Missouri Securities Act’ may be extended from year to year.”

The petition then alleges that on or about the 8th day of January, 1935, A. B. Collins & Company, Inc., sold for relator a certificate in the Metropolitan Savings & Loan Association, at the price of $1462.74 and, with this money, relator opened, up with said company, a so-called “trading account” in her name and “that before this plaintiff (relator) could advise said A. B. Collins & Company, Inc., what stocks or securities to purchase for her account, said A. B. Collins & Company, Inc., without consulting this plaintiff,” bought and sold various common stocks in corporations for her account using her money on deposit with it for the making of such purchases, and that all of thése purchases and sales were made without her consent, knowledge or authority; that upon learning of these transactions of A. B. Collins & Company, Inc., the relator demanded that it immediately pay over to her the proceeds of the sale of her Metropolitan *734 Savings & Loan certificate; that said company promised that it would do so but, instead, continued to make purchases and sales of stock, assigning them to the account of relator in violation of certain acts of the Securities Act and specifically in violation of the provisions of the bond to “properly account for all moneys or securities received from or belonging to another; ’ ’ that by said failure of A. B. Collins & Company, Inc., to comply with said Missouri Securities Act, as aforesaid, and because of the breach of the conditions of said bond running to the people of the State of Missouri in not properly accounting to this plaintiff for the proceeds of said savings certificate, she has been damaged in the sum of $1,462.74, with interest thereon at six per cent from the said 8th day of January, 1935. Judgment was prayed for $1,462.74 “as penalty under said bond.”

The statute, Section 7744, Revised Statutes 1929, requiring a bond by a securities dealer provides that such bond be “conditioned upon the faithful compliance with the provisions of this chapter by said dealer and by all salesmen registered by him while acting for him.” Relator insists that the court erred in sustaining defendant’s demurrer to the petition. In this connection she contends that the unlawful acts of A. B. Collins & Company, Inc., alleged in the petition, constituted a violation of the Securities Act, Chapter 40, Revised Statutes Missouri 1929, and even if they did not, and conceding “that the provisions for accounting is extrastatutory . . .,” it is a valid and enforceable obligation under the provisions of the common law.

- In opposition to the contentions of relator it is insisted that the bond required by the act is intended to cover only violations of the provisions of the act; that such violations are confined “ (1) to transactions in unregistered securities Sections 7725 and 7728'; (2) to disobedience of an order to cease and desist (Section 7736); (3) to the publication of advertisements of any security before registration or after the cancellation of the privilege of selling of such security (Section 7741) and (4) to engaging in the business of selling securities by an unlicensed, or unregistered, dealer or salesman (Sections 7744, 7746); that the act was passed for the purpose of protecting the buyers of securities, of which plaintiff was not one; that civil relief from the results of, and criminal punishment for, the violation of any of the provisions of the act are contained in Sections 7747, 7748, 7749, 7750, 7751, 7752, 7754 and 7757; that the act does not enter into the field of granting recourse to victims of the nonperformance of contracts by, or of the personal dishonesty of, dealers or salesmen; that the purpose of the act is to require offered .securities to be of the proper type, and tó exclude those who are not worthy of the privilege of participating in the business of a securities dealer or broker.”

We conclude that this analysis of the act is a correct one and this being so it is apparent that that condition of the bond provided for by the statute, to-wit, “the faithful compliance with the provisions *735 of this Chapter by said dealer and all salesmen registered by him while acting for him,” was not breached.

Having concluded that no breach of the bond when considered as a statutory obligation has been shown, we come to a consideration of relator’s contention that the language of the bond, to-wit, “shall properly account for all moneys or securities received from or belonging to another,” may be enforced as a common law obligation.

As to the above contention of relator, we must take into consideration that the record clearly shows that the bond in question was given in contemplation of the statute and, in, so far as the respondent is concerned, the giving of the bond was an involuntary act, its conditions being imposed by the direction of the State’s agency as a prerequisite for relator to receive a license to do business under the provisions of the law. Under the conditions presented we conclude that this court must not indulge in the presumption that the State agency by inclusion of the language quoted above intended to extend the scope of the bond beyond the requirement of the statute. We, therefore, conclude that the language quoted, supra, was in, and of, and inseparable from the provisions requiring a faithful compliance with the provisions of the law under which respondent was qualifying to do business.

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Bluebook (online)
143 S.W.2d 483, 235 Mo. App. 729, 1940 Mo. App. LEXIS 89, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-sanders-v-hartford-accident-indemnity-co-moctapp-1940.