State ex rel. Davis v. Banking House of Castetter

• Decision Date: 14 March 1928
• Docket Number: 26261
• Parties: STATE, EX REL. CLARENCE A. DAVIS, ATTORNEY GENERAL, PLAINTIFF, v. BANKING HOUSE OF A. CASTETTER ET AL., APPELLEES: WILLIAM MEIER, INTERVENER, APPELLANT. EMIL FOLDA, RECEIVER, PLAINTIFF, v. FREDERICK H. CLARIDGE ET AL., DEFENDANTS
• Court: Nebraska Supreme Court

218 N.W. 584

116 Neb. 610

STATE, EX REL. CLARENCE A. DAVIS, ATTORNEY GENERAL, PLAINTIFF, v. BANKING HOUSE OF A. CASTETTER ET AL., APPELLEES:

WILLIAM MEIER, INTERVENER, APPELLANT.

EMIL FOLDA, RECEIVER, PLAINTIFF, v. FREDERICK H. CLARIDGE ET AL., DEFENDANTS

No. 26261

Supreme Court of Nebraska

March 14, 1928

APPEAL from the district court for Washington county: CHARLES LESLIE, JUDGE. Affirmed.

AFFIRMED.

L. R Newkirk, for appellant.

C. M Skiles, Gaines, Van Orsdel & Gaines and Smith, Schall, Howell & Sheehan, contra.

Heard before GOSS, C. J., ROSE, GOOD, THOMPSON and EBERLY, JJ., and REDICK, District Judge.

OPINION

ROSE, J.

William Meier is an intervening petitioner in equity, seeking to establish his right to funds deposited by Helen M. Claridge in the Banking House of A. Castetter and to resort to the bank guaranty fund for payment of the deposits. The items comprising the depositor's claim are two certificates of deposit, one for $ 500 and the other for $ 4,500, and a balance of $ 426.87 on a checking account, or $ 5,426.87 in all. Meier pleads a right to these deposits under an equitable assignment or written contract transferring them to him, as he alleges, for the purpose of applying the proceeds on a mortgage partially securing a debt owing to him by the mortgagors, Helen M. Claridge and her husband Frederick H. Claridge.

In a proceeding by the state for a receivership to wind up the affairs of the Banking House of A. Castetter, hereinafter called the "bank," an insolvent corporation formerly conducting a commercial banking business at Blair, the depositor, Helen M. Claridge, presented to the receiver for allowance, April 23, 1921, her claim of $ 5,426.87 for the deposits described. This is the claim to which Meier succeeded, according to his petition in equity.

The Claridges had owned capital stock issued by the bank. The receiver and the guaranty fund commission refused to pay the claim for deposits, on the ground that the depositor is chargeable with the double liability of a stockholder in excess of her claim and that the debts of the bank would exceed its assets to the extent of $ 300,000. In this condition of affairs, November 25, 1924, the receiver sued the Claridges to require a disclosure of the amount of bank stock held by each and to set off against the claim of the depositor her liability as a stockholder. The allegations in the petition of the receiver were admitted by the Claridges with the exception that their ownership of stock was denied. November 29, 1924, the action against the stockholders and the action by the state for a receivership were consolidated by mutual agreement. November 29, 1924, by decree of the district court, the respective claims of the parties to the consolidated actions were equalized and set off against each other, liability of the receiver and of the guaranty fund commission for deposits and liability of the Claridges as stockholders being thus discharged.

Meier was permitted to intervene September 1, 1926. He alleged in his petition that the district court was without jurisdiction to determine the matter of the stockholders' liability or to set off against it the claim for deposits, because the affairs of the bank had not yet been closed or its assets exhausted, the decree in these respects being challenged as void; that Meier was without knowledge of the action against the stockholders until February 25, 1925; that the decree was procured by the fraud and collusion of the parties to the consolidation and should be set aside; that the preferred claim of Meier for the deposits should be allowed.

In addition to a plea of former adjudication the facts generally upon which Meier relied for equitable relief were put in issue by answers to his petition. A trial resulted in a dismissal of his cause of action and he appealed.

There was an elaborate argument on the proposition that the district court did not have jurisdiction of the subject-matter relating to the double liability of the depositor as a stockholder, because the assets of the bank had not yet been exhausted. The better reasoning seems to be otherwise. The affairs of the bank were in the court of equity. The parties to the consolidated actions...