Barreda v. Milmo Nat. Bank

• Decision Date: 30 June 1923
• Docket Number: (No. 447-3831.)
• Citation: 252 S.W. 1038
• Parties: BARREDA v. MILMO NAT. BANK.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 1038

252 S.W. 1038

BARREDA v. MILMO NAT. BANK.

(No. 447-3831.)

Commission of Appeals of Texas, Section A.

June 30, 1923.

Error to Court of Civil Appeals of Fourth Supreme Judicial District.

Action by Porfiria G. de Barreda against the Milmo National Bank. Judgment for defendant was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals (241 S. W. 743), and plaintiff brings error. Affirmed.

Ball & Seeligson and C. W. Trueheart, all of San Antonio, and N. A. Rector, of Austin, for plaintiff in error.

J. D. Dodson, of San Antonio, for defendant in error.

RANDOLPH, J.

This suit was instituted by plaintiff in error to recover of defendant in error upon a certificate of deposit, which certificate is in words as follows:

"Daniel Milmo, President. Miles T. Gogley, Vice President. John W. Mussett, Cashier. The Milmo National Bank of Laredo. No. 2516. Mexican $16,000.00. Laredo, Texas, March 7, 1911. Porfiria G. de Barreda has deposited in this bank sixteen thousand and no/100 Mexican dollars payable to the order of herself in current funds six months after date on the return of this certificate properly indorsed, with interest at the rate of five per cent. per annum if left six months or longer. [Perforated: $16,000.00.] Albert Martin, A. Cashier."

The word "Mexican," where it appears on the certificate, is stamped in red ink.

From a judgment adverse to her in the trial court, defendant appealed to the Court of Civil Appeals, and the trial court's judgment was there affirmed. 241 S. W. 743.

The certificate herein sued on is a renewal of several other certificates. The original deposit was made by Abran de la Garza, and the plaintiff testified that she inherited it from her aunt, Mrs. de la Garza, in 1907, as a Mexican deposit. The amount of the certificate in 1907, when she inherited it, was $22,000. The plaintiff is somewhat confused in her testimony as to how the certificate came to be reduced to the amount of the certificate sued on, but there can be no question but what she did receive a part of the principal of the original certificate, as we find in the statement of facts one canceled certificate payable to her order for $22,000, dated December 29, 1908, and another for $17,000, payable to her order, dated January 5, 1910, marked "Paid," of which the certificate sued on was evidently a renewal. The cashier of the bank, who issued the certificate sued on, testified that the first certificate issued to the plaintiff was dated December 29, 1908, and was for $22,000, and that this was subsequently reduced to $17,000 on January 5, 1910, and on March 7, 1911, was again reduced to the sum of $16,000.

The banks at Laredo, the defendant bank being among the number, were accommodating themselves to border conditions, and kept two classes of banking and deposit accounts on their books; one being for the deposit and loan of American money, and one to handle Mexican money. When a deposit was made of American money it was entered in the American deposit account, and when made in Mexican money it was entered in the Mexican account. All of the evidence and the canceled certificates (both being in the words of the certificate sued on) show that the original deposit was in Mexican money, and that it was deposited in the Mexican account. However, while it cannot be successfully controverted that the original deposit was of Mexican money, certainly the plaintiff's repeated acceptance of certificates of deposit for Mexican money, and her knowledge of the system and custom of the bank in running the two classes of accounts, deprive her of the right to claim a deposit payable as of the date of her last certificate in American money at the rate of one American dollar for two Mexican dollars, or in Mexican silver. She not only knew of the double system of accounts run by the bank, carrying herself both an American and Mexican account, but she acquiesced in her deposit by placing it on the Mexican account, and by accepting the certificate sued on, and by accepting a part of the principal of the deposit, and probably all of the interest, in Mexican bank bills. It is true she claims that prior to 1914 she either got Mexican bank bills or Mexican silver dollars as she made requests for them, but the whole of her testimony and the testimony of the other witnesses establish beyond a doubt in our minds the conclusion reached by the Court of Civil Appeals, that she received same in Mexican bank bills.

We do not think it necessary to pass upon the question as to whether or not the contention of defendant that the money, being in foreign currency, was purchased by it as a commodity, but only pass on and decide the case as being controlled by the contract under the known custom and usages of the defendant bank and other banks of Laredo.

The Mexican business of the defendant was conducted as though it were a bank doing business across the river in the territory of the republic of Mexico. This course of business was born of the necessity of the times and of their location. Any one in the least degree familiar with the trend of events in the last 20 or 30 years knows that our state has been flooded along the border with refugees from Mexico, driven out by hostile political environments. These people fleeing from their enemies brought with them, not only such personal property as they could...