State v. Fields

• Decision Date: 03 April 1895
• Citation: 62 N.W. 653,98 Iowa 748
• Parties: STATE v. FIELDS.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

98 Iowa 748

62 N.W. 653

STATE

v.FIELDS.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

April 3, 1895.

Appeal from district court, Buchanan county; John J. Ney, Judge.

The defendant was president of the First National Bank of Cedar Falls, in this state, and was indicted for receiving a deposit of money in said bank when he knew it was insolvent. There was a demurrer to the indictment, which was sustained, and the state appeals. Reversed.G. W. Dawson, Black Co. Atty., and E. E. Hasner, Buchanan Co. Atty., for the State.

Hemenway & Grundy, Mullan & Pickett, and Powers, Lacy & Brown, for appellee.

ROTHROCK, J.

The indictment is founded on sections 1, 2, chapter 153, of the Acts of the Eighteenth General Assembly of this state. Section 1 of said act is in these words: “That no bank, banking house, exchange broker, deposit office or firm, company, corporation or party engaged in the banking, broker's exchange, or deposit business shall accept or receive on deposit, with or without interest, any moneys, bank bills, or notes, or United States treasury notes or currency, or other notes, bills or drafts circulating as currency, when such bank, banking house, exchange broker or deposit office, firm or party is insolvent.” Section 2 of the act provides that if any such bank, exchange broker, company, or corporation shall receive or accept on deposit any money when insolvent, any “officer, director, cashier, manager, member, party, or managing party thereof, knowing of such insolvency, who shall knowingly receive or accept, be accessory or permit or connive at the receiving or accepting on deposit therein or thereby, any such deposits as aforesaid, shall be guilty of a felony.” The punishment, upon the conviction, is imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term not exceeding 10 years.

It is not necessary to set out the demurrer to the indictment. There are really but two questions presented for our consideration. One is that the statute under which the indictment was found is not applicable to officers of national banks. There is nothing in the act authorizing the conclusion that any banking institution is excluded from its operation. On the contrary, by its language it includes all banks, whether organized under the laws of the state or the acts of congress.

2. The real question in the case is whether the statute above cited is an attempt to control and regulate the business operations of a national bank. It is contended in behalf of appellee that the state has no power to punish an officer of a national bank for receiving deposits when he knows that the bank is insolvent, because it is a direct interference, and an attempt to prescribe a condition upon which deposits may not be received. It is conceded that there is no act of congress prohibiting the receipt of deposits at any time before an insolvent bank is taken out of the control of its officers under the provisions of the federal statute. Under the act of congress of June 3, 1864, and amendments thereto, when a banking association has complied with the law, and received a certificate, it is authorized to commence a banking business under the regulations prescribed in sections 5190-5219 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, inclusive. And the seventh subdivision of section 5136 is in these words: “Seventh. To exercise by its board of directors, or duly authorized officers and agents, subject to law, all such incidental powers as shall be necessary to carry on the business of banking; by discounting and negotiating promissory notes, drafts, bills of exchange and other evidences of debt; by receiving deposits; by buying and selling exchange, coin and bullion; by loaning money upon personal security; and by obtaining, issuing and circulating notes according to the provisions of this title.” It has been several times held by the supreme court of the United States that a state cannot impose a tax upon national banks unless permitted to do so by act of congress. McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 435; Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 449. And in the case of Bank v. Dearing, 91 U. S. 29, it was held that a state had no power to provide a penalty against a national bank for taking usurious interest in excess of that prescribed by act of congress. It is contended by counsel for appellee that the statute under which this indictment was found is a direct interference with the right to receive deposits, and that, within the principle of the cases above cited, an officer of a bank, even though the institution is actually insolvent, cannot be punished under a state enactment for receiving deposits, knowing that his bank is...