National Bank of the Commonwealth v. Mechanics National Bank

• Citation: 24 L.Ed. 176,94 U.S. 437
• Parties: NATIONAL BANK OF THE COMMONWEALTH v. MECHANICS' NATIONAL BANK
• Decision Date: 01 October 1876
• Court: United States Supreme Court

94 U.S. 437

24 L.Ed. 176

NATIONAL BANK OF THE COMMONWEALTH v. MECHANICS' NATIONAL BANK.

October Term, 1876

ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

Mr. Solicitor-General Phillips for the plaintiff in error.

Mr. William S. Opdyke, contra.

MR. JUSTICE SWAYNE delivered the opinion of the court.

This suit was brought by the defendant in error as an original claimant, and as the assignee of other parties.

All the claims have a common origin, and involve the same principle.

On the 22d of November, 1873, the Bank of the Commonwealth refused to pay its circulating notes on demand, and became in default. The comptroller of the currency appointed a receiver, and the bank has since been in his hands. The Mechanics' Bank and its assignors had funds on deposit. On the 24th of September, 1873, all the parties demanded payment. Nothing was paid. Instalments on account of the principal debts were subsequently paid from time to time to each of the parties. On the 20th of November, 1874, the last instalment was paid in each case, and the principal debts were thereby extinguished. At each payment, interest from the 24th of September, 1873, on the amount so paid, was demanded and refused. The other parties assigned to the defendant in error their claims respectively for such interest. The Mechanics' Bank instituted this suit. The declaration demands the payment of this interest in all the cases, with interest upon the aggregate amount from the 20th of November, 1874. The Bank of the Commonwealth demurred. Judgment was given against it, and this writ of error was thereupon prosecuted.

Two errors are assigned.

1. That the plaintiff below was not entitled to recover any interest.

2. If interest was recoverable, as demanded, on each instalment when paid, the plaintiff was not entitled to interest on the gross amount of such interest from the 20th of November, 1874, the time when the last instalments of the principal were paid.

There is but one demurrer, and that is to the whole declaration. The point is, therefore, well taken by the counsel for the defendant in error, that if any part of the declaration be good, and divisible in its nature from the residue, the demurrer must be overruled. 1 Chitty's Plead. 664. But the view which we take of the case renders it unnecessary to apply this rule.

By the common law, interest could in no case be recovered. As early as the reign of King Alfred, in the ninth century, it was held in detestation. Churchmen and laymen alike denounced it. Glanville, Fleta, and Bracton all speak of it in terms of abhorrence. The first English statute upon the subject was the 37 Hen. VIII. c. 9.

This statute fixed the lawful rate of interest at ten per cent per annum, and visited receiving mor with forfeiture and imprisonment. Other statutes regulating the subject were passed in later reigns from time to time, until finally an act of Parliament in 1854, 17 & 18 Vict. c. 90, swept all the usury laws in the English statute-books out of existence, and established 'free trade in money.' The first impulse to public opinion in this direction was given by Bentham, near the close of the last century. The final result was doubtless largely due to his labors.

The fiftieth section of the National Banking Act, 13 Stat 113, requires the comptroller of the currency to apply the moneys paid over to him by the receiver 'on all such claims as may have been proved to his satisfaction, or adjudicated in a court of competent jurisdiction.' The act is silent as to interest upon the claims before or after proof or judgment. Can it be doubted that a judgment, if taken, would include interest down to the time of its rendition? Sect. 996 of the Rev. Stat. p. 182, declares that all judgments in the courts of the United States shall bear the same rate of interest as judgments in the courts of the States respectively where they are rendered. Interest is allowed by the law of New York upon judgments from the time they are perfected. Rev. Code of N. Y. (ed. 1859), vol. iii. p. 637.

If these claims had been put in judgment, whether in a court of the United States or in a State court of that State, the result as to interest upon the judgment would have been the same. It was unnecessary to reduce them to judgment, because they were proved to the satisfaction of the comptroller. After they were so proved, they were of the same efficacy as judgments, and occupied the same legal ground. Hence, they are within the equity, if not the letter, of these statutes, and bear interest as judgments would have done. Sedgw. on Constr. 311, 315. This is conclusive upon the first assignment of error.

The rule settled by this court as to the application of payment is, that the debtor or party paying the money may, if he chooses to do so, direct its appropriation; if he fail, the right devolves upon the creditor; if he fail, the law will make the application according to its own notions of justice. Neither of the parties can make it after a controversy upon the subject has arisen between them, and a fortiori not at the trial. United States v. Kirkpatrick, 9 Wheat. 720; United States v. January, 7 Cranch, 572; Field v. Holland, 6 id. 8. In the present case, the appropriation was...