Corsicana Nat Bank of Corsicana v. Johnson

• Decision Date: 08 December 1919
• Docket Number: No. 23,23
• Citation: 64 L.Ed. 141,251 U.S. 68,40 S.Ct. 82
• Parties: CORSICANA NAT. BANK OF CORSICANA v. JOHNSON
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

251 U.S. 68

40 S.Ct. 82

64 L.Ed. 141

CORSICANA NAT. BANK OF CORSICANA

v JOHNSON.

No. 23.

Argued and Submitted Jan. 16, 1919.

Decided Dec. 8, 1919.

[Syllabus from pages 68-69 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Joseph Manson McCormick and Francis Marion Etheridge, both of Dallas, Tex., for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. Cullen F. Thomas, of Dallas, Tex., W. J. McKie, of Corsicana, Tex., and Henry C. Coke, of Dallas, Tex., for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice PITNEY delivered the opinion of the Court.

This was an action brought under section 5239, Rev. Stat. U. S. (Comp. St. § 9831), in the then Circuit (now District) Court of the United States for the Northern District of Texas by plaintiff in error, a national banking association which we may call for convenience the bank, against defendant in error, formerly a member of its board of directors and its vice president, to hold him liable personally for damages sustained by the bank in consequence of his having knowingly violated, as was alleged, the provisions of section 5200, Rev. Stat., as amended June 22, 1906 (34 Stat. 451, c. 3516 [Comp. St. § 9761]), by participating as such director and vice president in a loan of the bank's funds to an amount exceeding one-tenth of its paid-in capital and surplus.

The action appears to have been commenced in February, 1910, and, after delays not necessary to be recounted, was tried before the District Court with a jury. A verdict was directed in favor of defendant, and the judgment thereon was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals, no opinion being delivered in either court. The judgment of affirmance is now under review.

The amended section 5200, Rev. Stat., as it stood at the time the alleged cause of action arose, reads as follows, the matter inserted by the amendment being indicated by brackets:

'Sec. 5200. The total liabilities to any association, of any person, or of any company, corporation, or firm for money borrowed, including in the liabilities of a company or firm, the liabilities of the several members thereof, shall at no time exceed one-tenth part of the amount of the capital stock of such association actually paid in [and unimpaired and one-tenth part of its unimpaired surplus fund: Provided, however, that the total of such liabilities shall in no event exceed thirty per centum of the capital stock of the association]. But the discount of bills of exchange drawn in good faith against actually existing values, and the discount of commercial or business paper actually owned by the person negotiating the same, shall not be considered as money borrowed.'

The pertinent portion of the other section reads as follows:

'Sec. 5239. If the directors of any national banking association shall knowingly violate, or knowingly permit any of the officers, agents, or servants of the association to violate any of the provisions of this title, all the rights, privileges, and franchises of the association shall be thereby forfeited. * * * And in cases of such violation, every director who participated in or assented to the same shall be held liable in his personal and individual capacity for all damages which the association, its shareholders, or any other person, shall have sustained in consequence of such violation.'

Under the rule settled by familiar decisions of this court, in order for the bank to prevail in this action it must appear not only that the liabilities of a person, company, firm, etc., to the bank for money borrowed were permitted to exceed the prescribed limit, but that defendant, while a director, participated in or assented to the excessive loan or loans, not through mere negligence, but knowingly and in effect intentionally (Yates v. Jones Nat. Bank, 206 U. S. 158, 180, 27 Sup. Ct. 638, 51 L. Ed. 1002), with this qualification, that if he deliberately refrained from investigating that which it was his duty to investigate, any resulting violation of the statute must be regarded as 'in effect intentional' (Thomas v. Taylor, 224 U. S. 73, 82, 32 Sup. Ct. 403, 56 L. Ed. 673; Jones Nat. Bank v. Yates, 240 U. S. 541, 555, 36 Sup. Ct. 429, 60 L. Ed. 788).

The facts are involved, and need to be fully stated. And necessarily, in order to test the propriety of the peremptory instruction given by the trial judge, we must bring into view the facts and the reasonable inferences which tended to a different conclusion, and where the evidence was in substantial dispute must adopt a view of it favorable to plaintiff; but of course we do this without intending to intimate what view the jury ought to have taken, had the case been submitted to it.

On June 10, 1907, plaintiff, whose banking house was at Corsicana, Tex., had $100,000 capital and $100,000 surplus, aggregating $200,000, and making $20,000 the applicable limit under section 5200. Defendant was a director and vice president of the bank, active—perhaps dominant—in the conduct of it banking business, and familiar with the state of its finances.

The averment of a breach of duty relates to an alleged excessive loan or loans made on or about the date last mentioned to Fred Fleming and D. A. Templeton, who for a considerable time had been engaged in business as private bankers in Corsicana and in several other towns in Texas under the firm name of Fleming & Templeton, and also had conducted at Corsicana a branch bank for the Western Bank & Trust Company, a state institution of which Fleming was president and Templeton vice president and whose main banking house appears to have been at Dallas, about 50 miles from Corsicana. There was evidence that early in June, 1907, Fleming & Templeton terminated their private banking business at Corsicana and turned over their deposit accounts—between $30,000 and $40,000 to the Corsicana National Bank, plaintiff herein, together with money or exchange on the Western Bank & Trust Company sufficient to meet them. Whether the firm was in fact dissolved at that time or later, and whether the dissolution applied to their other branches, or to the Corsicana business only, were points concerning which under the evidence there was some doubt.

On or about June 10th, while the president of the bank was absent on vacation, defendant loaned for the bank to Fleming and Templeton $30,000 (less discount) upon two promissory notes for $15,000 each, maturing in six months. Defendant testified that both Fleming and Templeton negotiated with him, asking for two separate loans of $15,000 each, telling him that they had dissolved partnership and were winding up and closing out at Corsicana, and would turn over between $30,000 and $40,000 of deposits to the Corsicana National Bank. He further testified:

'One of the considerations of this loan was the transfer of the deposits and with it the accounts of Fleming & Templeton.'

He insisted that two separate loans were made, of $15,000 each, one to Fleming for which Templeton was surety, the other to Templeton for which Fleming was surety. But defendant's own account of the circumstances under which and the special inducement upon which the loan was made, with other evidence to be recited below, left room for a reasonable inference that there was in fact but a single loan, and that separate notes were taken in order to avoid the appearance of a loan in excess of the limit. They were in the usual form of joint and several notes, payable to plaintiff's order. One was signed, 'Fred Fleming, D. A. Templeton;' the other, 'D. A. Templeton, Fred Fleming'—without naming either maker as surety. Discount to the amount of $900 was deducted, and the net proceeds, $29,100, were paid by a draft drawn by the bank on the Western Bank & Trust Company to the order of 'Fleming & Templeton,' which was sent by mail inclosed in a letter written upon the Bank's letter head, dated June 10, 1907, and addressed to Templeton at Dallas, in which letter, after acknowledging receipt of the two notes for $15,000 each, 'signed by yourself and Fred Fleming,' it was stated:

'We have deducted the discount, $900.00, and hand you herewith our draft No. A-7830, on Western Bank & Trust Company, order Fleming & Templeton, for $29,000.00.'

The retained copy of this letter appears to have been introduced in evidence; at the foot, opposite the place of signature, are the initials 'V. P.' With regard to this, as also to certain other 'V. P.' letters, dated in the following December and relating to renewal of the notes, defendant testified:

'I think I signed the letters which are offered in evidence as Exhibit H,' etc.

There was evidence that the draft for $29,100 was indorsed in the firm name by Templeton and deposited in the Western Bank & Trust Company at Dallas to the credit of the joint account of Fleming & Templeton, to make up in part an overdraft amounting to more than $125,000; this account having been overdrawn constantly, and in large but varying amounts, since the preceding April.

As a result of an examination of the bank made a few days later, the Comptroller of the Currency wrote to its president under date June 22d, severely criticizing the Fleming-Templeton loan, among others, as excessive under section 5200, R. S., and saying:

'Immediate arrangements must be made to reduce these loans to the legal limit.'

It was a fair inference that defendant knew of this letter, or in the proper performance of his duties would have known of it. Whether any reply was made to it did not appear.

Notwithstanding the warning thus given, when the notes matured in December they were renewed with defendant's assent for a further period of six months, joint notes being given to the bank as before, and the further sum of $900 being paid by Fleming & Templeton to the bank for interest in this way: Plaintiff, under defendant's direction, charged the amount in a single item to the Western Bank & Trust Company, for account of the borrowers, and the latter institution acknowledged the charge, gave credit to plaintiff for the amount, and...