Taft v. Guardian Trust Co.

17 Ohio Law. Abs. 54, 32 Ohio N.P. (n.s.) 345, 1934 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1136
CourtCity of Cleveland Municipal Court
DecidedJuly 5, 1934
DocketNo 715682
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 17 Ohio Law. Abs. 54 (Taft v. Guardian Trust Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering City of Cleveland Municipal Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Taft v. Guardian Trust Co., 17 Ohio Law. Abs. 54, 32 Ohio N.P. (n.s.) 345, 1934 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1136 (Ohio Super. Ct. 1934).

Opinion

[57]*57OPINION

By DRUCKER, J.

I. When a bank goes upon a restricted withdrawal basis but announces that it will accept new deposits without restrictions as to their availability, the scheme of operations envisaged thereby contemplates that whatever assets are the subject-matter of the new deposits shall be segregated from the previously acquired assets of the bank and that the divisions of the bank's business into new and oid shall be maintained as sharp and distinct as if two separate banking corporations were handling the respective divisions.

Accepting for the moment plaintiff’s contention that the $50 deposit is to be treated as the equivalent of a deposit made upon the morning of February 27, 1933, we turn to a consideration of that which plaintiffs deposited with the bank for credit to their checking account and find that it was a savings account withdrawal slip. In addition to its function as a receipt, a withdrawal slip is an authorization to the bank to charge the relative account in the designated amount. In the present case plaintiffs’ savings account was reduced by $70; in consideration of such diminution plaintiffs received $20 in cash and a credit on their checking account for $50. As only the $50 credit is in controversy we shall generally ignore the cash payment of $20. Accordingly the net result of the transaction was that plaintiffs exchanged a savings credit for a checking credit. If on the morning of Monday, February 27, 1933, plaintiffs had presented to the bank a withdrawal slip, drawn against a restricted savings account, and had requested in exchange therefor, the credit of a like amount to a new, segregated account, they would, of course, have been met with a refusal by the bank. If, through the inadvertence of an officer or employee, such withdrawal slip had been accepted and a new non-restricted checking account had been opened for plaintiffs in exchange therefor, we entertain no doubt that upon discovery of the mistake the book entries could be lawfully reversed.

One cannot deny the force of the general rule that, once a bank has accepted as a deposit an instrument drawn upon itself and has given the depositor credit therefor, the transaction has, in the absence of contract stipulation to the contrary, attained finality and cannot be undone. Neither the inadequacy of the drawer’s account nor the forgery of his signature give the bank competency to withdraw the credit. American National Bank v Miller, 229 U. S. 517, 33 Sup. Ct. 883; Cohen v First National Bank, 22 Ariz. 394, 198 Pac. 122; Rawles v Saulsbury, 66 Ga. 394; American Exchange National Bank v Gregg, 138 Ill. 596, 28 NE 839; Hay v First National Bank, 224 Ill. App. 286; First National Bank v Mammoth Blue Gem Coal Co., 194 Ky. 580, 240 SW 78; Black Mtn. Bank v Kelly, 213 Ky. 34, 280 SW 461; Schutts v Citizens Bank, 3 La. App. 547; Sewers Co. v First National Bank, 6 La. App. 721; Scotts Bluff County v First National Bank, 115 Neb. 273, 212 NW 617; People v Sheppard, 37 App. Div. 119, 55 N. Y. Supp. 1130; Consolidated National Bank v First National Bank, 129 App. Div. 538, 114 N. Y. Supp. 308; Oddie v National City Bank, 45 N. Y. 735; Levy v Bank of the United States, 4 U. S. 234, 1 Binn. 271; Bassett v Mechanics Rank, 168 Atl. 12 (Conn.)

[58]*58But we conceive the hypothetical case to have additional elements which would render the general rule inapplicable. When a bank, in agreement with its clearinghouse associates and in accordance with the statutes, announces that withdrawals oí deposits will be limited to certain percentages and amounts specifically set out in the announcement, it thereupon becomes the duty of such bank to adhere to the limitations set forth, to treat all depositors with the strictest impartiality within the terms of the limitations and to refrain from all activities, secret or otherwise, which would in their effects contravene the spirit of such conservatory action. Good faith to the utmost is the least that should be required in such circumstances. Having abandoned its contractual pretensions, the bank must stand in the position of a quasi-trustee and without favor or prejudice so conduct itself as to prevent the creation of preferences among its creditors. To hold that the bank would be bound by the entry of the checking credit as by an admission would be to accord plaintiffs preferential treatment and, in the events which have occurred including the insolvency administration of the bank, would be fraudulent as to other holders of restricted savings accounts.

Furthermore, to validate the hypothetical checking' account credit, assumed above as actually made on the morning of February 27, 1933, would be fraudulent as to those persons making segregated, non-restricted deposits on and after such February 27. Plaintiffs’ petition does not make clear the exact assets from which they have made demand to be paid. Inasmuch as plaintiffs’ case rests upon the contention that they made a deposit after the bank had gone upon a restricted basis, and bearing in mind that new business of the restricting bank is presumed to have been kept distinct from the old, we assume that plaintiffs’ demand relates to payment from assets acquired in the conduct of the new, segregated and non-restricted business. If the new business was sharply segregated from the old and if plaintiffs’ deposit theory is correct, we should expect to find the subject matter of plaintiffs’ deposit among the assets of the new business, all which constitute a fund out of which new, non-restricted depositors are to be paid. In the instant situation the only thing deposited by plaintiffs with the bank was a withdrawal slip drawn against itself. Their act in procuring the $50 credit (which is asserted to be non-restricted) passed no asset to the baffle which it could segregate along with the assets received from non-restricted depositors on February 27 and afterward. Assuming that $1000 of non-restricted deposits were made with the bank on February 27, represented by $1000 in cash and checks! on non-restricting institutions, plaintiffs’ contention would result in increasing the total of the day’s non-restricted deposits to $1050, all payable out of the $1000 in assets received during the day. Such a result could not be countenanced. Those who deposit on the segregated basis are entitled to have the assets which were the subject matter of their deposits applied to the repayment of such deposits as against one who has procured a credit with the bank but who has passed no segregable asset to the bank which could be put in the common pool of segregated assets. To hold otherwise would be fraudulent as to those who have handed over real assets to the bank for segregated deposit.

Accordingly the contention of plaintiffs that this deposit is to be treated as if actually made on February 27, 1933, avails them nothing. It is probable, although we are not informed, that after the Guardian Trust Company passed into the hands of the Superintendent of Banks for liquidation, all the assets remaining as the subject matter of the non-restricted deposits were exhausted by being used in the repayment of such non-restricted accounts. Plaintiffs’ position, in that contingency, is considered at another point in this opinion.

II. To this point this opinion has proceeded upon the assumption that the deposit of plaintiffs on Saturday afternoon should be treated as if made on the following Monday.

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Bluebook (online)
17 Ohio Law. Abs. 54, 32 Ohio N.P. (n.s.) 345, 1934 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1136, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/taft-v-guardian-trust-co-ohmunictclevela-1934.