Bank of Tenn. v. Dibrell

• Decision Date: 31 December 1855
• Citation: 35 Tenn. 379
• Parties: BANK OF TENNESSEE et al. v. A. DIBRELL et al.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

35 Tenn. 379

BANK OF TENNESSEE et al.

v.A. DIBRELL et al.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

December Term, 1855.

FROM WHITE.

This was a bill filed in the chancery court at Sparta, on the 30th of April, 1855, by the Bank of Tennessee and the state of Tennessee against Anthony Dibrell and others, and Arthur Crozier, comptroller of the treasury, to subject a tract of land in the county of White, of which said Anthony Dibrell is alleged to be the equitable owner, to the payment of certain debts alleged to be due said bank from said Dibrell, and also to enjoin the respondent Crozier, as Comptroller, from issuing his warrant for the payment of the official salary of said Dibrell as treasurer of Tennessee, which the bill prays may also be applied in satisfaction of said debts. The several answers deny that the land in question is in any manner liable for its debts, and set up a bona-fide title to the same in G. C. Dibrell, one of the respondents. To that part of the bill praying for a sequestration of the defendant Dibrell's salary there was a demurrer. At the September term, 1855, Chancellor Van Dyke decreed in favor of respondents, and sustained the demurrer. The camplainants appealed.

Gardenhire, for the complainants; Colms, for the respondents.

Caruthers, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

This bill is filed for the purpose of rendering a tract of land near Sparta, the legal title to which is in defendant, G. Dibrell, and arrearages of salary due to defendant A. Dibrell, as treasurer of the state, liable for judgments to the amount of near $3,000, which the Bank of Tennessee has recovered in the circuit courts of Davidson and White counties. The decree was for the defendants, on all points, in the chancery court. No question is made here, except as to the salary; for which, it is insisted, there should have been a decree for the plaintiff.

It is charged in the bill that, as the Bank of Tennessee belongs to the state, all debts due to it are debts to the state, and, consequently, the relation of debtor and creditor exists between the state and defendant A. Dibrell, and for that reason his salary should be appropriated to the satisfaction of the judgments against him in favor of the bank. In this view, the defendant Crozier is enjoined, as comptroller, from issuing his warrant for the salary, as it may fall due. If it were true that the Bank of Tennessee and the treasury of Tennessee were identical, there would be much plausibility, and perhaps more, in the ground taken by complainants. In that case, the act of 1835, ch. 27, sec. 6 (C. & N. 691), would authorize and require the retention of the salary, and its application to the debt due to the state. But the assumption upon which the bill, in that aspect, is based, is unsound and fallacious. The fact that the bank is the creature and property of the state does not make it identical with, or even an integral part of, the state sovereignty. It is a distinct fiscal corporation, enjoying a separate existence, with its own chartered rights, obligations, and powers. The doctrine that when a state becomes a common carrier, by means of railroads owned by itself, or otherwise, or banker, or in any other mode enters into the common avocations of citizens, or private companies, or corporations, that it throws off its...