Casey v. Schneider

• Decision Date: 01 October 1877
• Citation: 96 U.S. 496,24 L.Ed. 790
• Parties: CASEY v. SCHNEIDER
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

96 U.S. 496

24 L.Ed. 790

CASEY v. SCHNEIDER.

October Term, 1877

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Louisiana.

The bill in this case was filed by Casey, receiver of the New Orleans National Banking Association, against Louis Schneider, George Jonas, and Patrick Irwin, the original defendants, who were trustees for the New Orleans Clearing-house, to compel them to deliver up notes and bills receivable and other securities to the amount of $223,677.25, and other assets to the amount of $57,500, which were pledged to the said trustees to secure the payment of clearing-house certificates issued to said bank to the amount of $199,000, from the 25th of September, 1873, to the time of its failure, Oct. 4 in that year, to enable it to settle its daily balances and exchanges with the other banks of the city represented in said clearing-house. These securities were delivered to the trustees in pledge as aforesaid at or before the issue of the clearing-house certificates which they were intended to secure; and said securities, or the proceeds thereof, were, until the bringing of this suit, kept by the trustees in their own possession for the purposes for which they had been pledged.

The articles of association, or agreement under which this transaction took place, were contained in an act passed before a notary-public on the 24th of September, 1873, when the several banks temporarily suspended cash payments under the influence of the financial panic which then occurred. The following is a copy of the provisions of said act, which was signed and entered into by fifteen banks of New Orleans:——

'Be it known that on this twenty-fifth day of the month of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventy-three, before me, Theodore Guyol, a notary-public, duly commissioned and sworn, for the parish of Orleans, State of Louisiana, and in the presence of the witnesses hereinafter named and undersigned, personally appeared the parties whose names are hereinafter subscribed, acting for and in the names of the banks and firms which they severally represent, who declared that in their several capacities they had made and entered into the following agreements and stipulations, which shall govern their mode of procedure for and during the thirty days ensuing the date hereof: Messrs. Louis Schneider, George Jonas, and Patrick Irwin are hereby appointed as trustees to act on behalf of the parties to this agreement, the said Louis Schneider to act as president of the said trusteeship. The said trustees are hereby empowered to issue certificates to each bank and banker, upon deposits of collaterals, to the extent of seventy-five per cent of what the said trustees shall deem their par value, the said certificates to be called clearing-house certificates, and to be in sums of not less than $1,000, and not more than $5,000 each. The said trustees shall select a bank to...