Special Road Dist. No. 4 v. Cantley
Decision Date | 20 July 1928 |
Citation | 8 S.W.2d 944,223 Mo.App. 89 |
Parties | SPECIAL ROAD DISTRICT NO. 4 ET AL., DALLAS COUNTY, RESPONDENT, v. S. L. CANTLEY, COMMISSIONER OF FINANCE, APPELLANT. [*] |
Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Appeal from the Circuit Court of Dallas County.--Hon. C. H. Skinker Judge.
AFFIRMED.
Judgment affirmed.
Page & Barrett for appellant.
O. H Scott and Levi Engle for respondent.
This is a suit to have a certain bank deposit declared a trust fund in the hands of the Bank of Louisburg, and in control of the state commissioner of finance and that the same be paid in full as a preferred claim. Judgment was for plaintiffs and defendant has appealed.
At the trial it was stipulated and agreed that the facts set forth in the petition are true except in the particulars hereinafter mentioned. The material allegations of the petition are as follows:
It is not admitted that the commissioners had no legal right or authority to withdraw funds from the county treasurer and that the cashier and officers of the bank knew at the time they received said money that they had no legal right or authority to accept same nor that said deposits were received and made in violation of law. These were conclusions of law pleaded in plaintiff's petition and denied by defendant. There was no testimony taken.
It is urged the court erred in holding that the claim of the petitioner was preferred and that the act of the commissioner of the road district in depositing the money in defendant bank and the act of the bank in receiving the deposit, were mala fides.
It stands conceded that the money deposited in the Bank of Louisburg, for which preference is sought, was public money. The general rule is that where public funds are deposited in a bank by an official charged with their custody, such deposit, in the absence of statute, stands upon the same plane as other general deposits and a claim therefore is not entitled to preference. [3 R. C. L. 555; McNulta v. West Chicago Park, 99 F. 900; Board of Education v. Union Trust Co., 136 Mich. 454, 99 N.W. 373.]
It is equally well settled that where public funds are wrongfully or illegally deposited in a bank having knowledge of the public character of the funds, they are impressed with a trust and entitled to a preference, provided the fund can be traced or the assets of the bank have thereby been increased. [Page County v. Rose et al., 130 Iowa 296, 8 Ann. Cas. 114, 106 N.W. 744; Spokane County v. Clark, 61 F. 538; Beard v. Independent Dist., 60 U.S. App. 372; Crawford County v. Strawn, 157 F. 49, 15 L.R.A. (N.S.) 1100; Allen v. United States, 285 F. 678; State v. Bank of Commerce, 54 Neb. 725, 75 N.W. 28.]
At common law the State was entitled to priority of payment out of the assets of an insolvent debtor. This proposition has been recognized in this State but preference denied on the theory of waiver. [In re Holland Banking Company, 281 S.W. 702.]
Whether or not the common-law doctrine could be invoked by a political subdivision of the State so as to entitle it to a preference, in the absence of statute, is questionable. However that may be, in the case at bar there is a statute relied upon by both plaintiff and defendant as upholding their respective theories. Section...
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