Phoenix Bank of the City of New York v. Risley

• Decision Date: 24 March 1884
• Parties: PHOENIX BANK OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK v. RISLEY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

111 U.S. 125

4 S.Ct. 322

28 L.Ed. 374

PHOENIX BANK OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK v. RISLEY.

March 24, 1884.

Wm. M. Evarts and Flamen B. Candler, for plaintiff in error.

F. A. Wilcox, W. R. Beebe, and John E. Risley, for defendant in error.

MILLER, J.

This is a writ of error to the court of appeals of New York. The defendant in error recovered against the plaintiff in error the sum of $10,000 and interest by the verdict of a jury, which found, as matter of fact, that the Bank of Georgetown, South Carolina, having a balance with the Phoenix Bank of New York on the twentieth day of May, 1861, assigned to Risley, the plaintiff in the state court, $10,000 of that sum, of which the Phoenix Bank had due notice by demand made by Risely January 4, 1865. With the questions which arose out of this transaction in the state court we have nothing to do, except as they concern the defense set up by the bank, that the money in its hands due to the Bank of Georgetown had been seized, condemned, and paid over to the marshal of the Southern district of New York, by virtue of certain confiscation proceedings in the district court of the United States for that district. The sufficiency of those proceedings, as a defense to the action, raises a question of a claim asserted under an authority of the United States, and, as the court of appeals sustained the judgment of the inferior court of that state rejecting the defense, the case, as to that question, is cognizable in this court.

The record of the confiscation proceedings in the district court was rejected by the state court when offered in evidence by defendant, and our inquiry must be directed to ascertain whether, if admitted, it would have been a good defense. The judge before whom the jury trial was had refused to receive the record in evidence, because it showed that the* con- fiscation proceedings, being in rem, were directed against certain specific money, which was the property of the Georgetown Bank, and which the Phoenix Bank held as a special deposit in the nature of a bailment, and not against the debt which the Phoenix Bank owed to the Georgetown Bank arising out of their relations as corresponding banks; that, this debt being assigned to Risley, the plaintiff was unaffected by the confiscation proceedings, because it was not mentioned in them, and no attempt was made to subject that debt to condemnation. That the relation of the Phoenix Bank and the Georgetown Bank was that of debtor and creditor, and nothing more, has been the settled doctrine of this court, as it is believed to be of all others, since the case of the Marine Bank v. Fulton Bank, 2 Wall. 252. In that case it was said that 'all deposits made with bankers may be divided into two classes, namely, those in which the bank is bailee of the depositor, the title to the thing deposited remaining with the latter, and that other kind of deposit of money peculiar to the banking business, in which the depositor, for his own convenience, parts with the title to his money and loans it to the banker; and the latter, in consideration of the loan of the money and the right to use it for his own profit, agrees to refund the same amount, or any part thereof, on demand.' 'It would be a waste of time,' said the court, 'to prove that this latter was a debtor and creditor relation.' This proposition has been reaffirmed in Thompson v. Riggs, 5 Wall. 572; Bank v. Millard, 10 Wall. 155; Oulton v. Sav. Inst. 17 Wall. 109; Scammon v. Kimball, 92 U. S. 370; and Newcomb v. Wood, 97 U. S. 583.

Mr. Parker, the cashier of the Phoenix Bank, speaking of the time when the marshal served the monition in the confiscation case on him, says that there were no specific funds, separate in kind, in the bank belonging to the Georgetown Bank, and only a general indebtedness in account for money, or drafts remitted, which had been collected. 'It was a debt. No specific money or bills the property of the Georgetown Bank.'

The libel of information in the district court commences by saying that it is 'against the estate, property, money, stocks, credits, and effects, to-wit, against $15,000, (fifteen thousand dollars,) more or less, belonging to the Bank of Georgetown, a corporation doing business at Georgetown, in the state of South Carolina; which said $15,000 is now in cash, and is now on deposit in the Phoenix Bank, a corporation doing business in the city of New York, all of which are owned by, and belonging to, and are the property of, the said Bank of Georgetown.' And it is alleged that, by reason of the use of this property in aid of the rebellion, and the treasonable practices of the Georgetown Bank, the said property, estate, and effects are subject to lawful prize, capture, and seizure, and should be confiscated and condemned. The monition, after reciting the libel against $15,000 belonging to the Georgetown Bank, which said $15,000 is now in cash, and on deposit with the Phoenix Bank, commands the marshal to attach the said $15,000, and to detain the same in his custody until the further order of the court. The return of the marshal is that he attached $13,000, more or less, deposited in the Phoenix Bank, belonging to the Bank of Georgetown, and gave notice to all persons claiming the same that the court would try the case on January 24th thereafter The decree of the court is that he, the judge, doth hereby order, sentence, and decree that $12,117.38 belonging to the Bank of Georgetown, of Georgetown, in the state of South Carolina, and now on deposit in the Phoenix Bank, in the city of New York, which said $12,117.38 has been heretofore seized by the marshal in this proceeding, be and the same is hereby condemned as forfeited to the United States. On this sentence a venditione exponas was issued to the marshal, in which he is ordered to sell this $12,117.38, and to have the moneys arising from the sale at the district court on a day mentioned.

It is not possible to understand that this case proceeded on any other idea than the actual seizure of a specific lot of money, supposed at first to amount to $15,000, but which turned out to be less, and that that lot of money was seized, was formally condemned, and ordered by the court to be sold, and the proceeds of the sale brought into court for distribution under the confiscation law. The specific money is described by apt words, as the property of the Bank of Georgetown, for whose misconduct it is seized, condemned, and forfeited. The very language is used, and no other, that would be if it were 1,200 horses instead of $12,000, of which the Georgetown Bank was owner, though in the possession of the Phoenix Bank. There is not the slightest intimation in the libel, the monition, the return to that...