State v. Leland

• Decision Date: 15 January 1904
• Docket Number: 13,774 - (214)
• Citation: 98 N.W. 92,91 Minn. 321
• Parties: STATE v. CHARLES F. LELAND
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

98 N.W. 92

91 Minn. 321

STATE v. CHARLES F. LELAND

Nos. 13,774 - (214)

Supreme Court of Minnesota

January 15, 1904

Defendant, a private banker, was indicted in the district court for St. Louis county under Laws 1895, c. 219, for the crime of accepting a deposit when he knew himself to be insolvent. A demurrer to the indictment was overruled by Ensign, J., who certified to the supreme court for its determination the following questions:

1. Is the act of 1895 unconstitutional and void as being in contravention of section 27, article 4, of the Constitution?

2. Is the act of 1895 unconstitutional and void for uncertainty in defining the nature of the offense prohibited?

Indictment held sufficient.

SYLLABUS

Title of Act.

Chapter 219, p. 504, Laws 1895, entitled "An act to amend section 467 of the Penal Code of the State of Minnesota relating to receiving deposits in insolvent banks," is not subject to the objection that it is violative of section 27, article 4, of the state Constitution, providing that "no law shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title."

Title of Act.

The purpose of Laws 1895, p. 504 (c. 219), was to provide a penalty against any corporation, private person, or broker, who, when insolvent, receives deposits to be returned to the depositor on demand according to the usual custom of banks, and the title of this act is fairly suggestive of its application to these purposes.

William Harrison and Luther C. Harris, for defendant.

W. B. Douglas, Attorney General, and John M. McClintock, County Attorney, for the State.

OPINION

LOVELY, J.

Defendant was indicted for receiving deposits as a private banker when he knew that his establishment was unsafe and insolvent. It is not questioned that the indictment sufficiently sets forth that the defendant was operating an unincorporated bank at Duluth under the designated name of the Commercial Banking Company, nor that it charged therein that while conducting such business he received from one Hartnett $45 on deposit, knowing that he and his concern were unsafe and insolvent, contrary to the provisions of Laws 1895, c. 219 (p. 504).

A general demurrer was interposed to the complaint, which was overruled, whereupon the court, at the request of defendant, certified the record to this court, under the proper procedure, for our opinion on the sufficiency of the indictment, which is attacked upon the ground that the statute defining the offense therein prohibited contravenes and is violative of section 27, article 4, of the state Constitution, which provides that "no law shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title." The title of the act in question reads, "An act to amend section 467 of the Penal Code of the state of Minnesota, relating to receiving deposits in insolvent banks."

It is the contention of counsel for defendant that this act is void since it defines several offenses of different kinds. The title of the act relates to receiving deposits in insolvent banks, but, as claimed, the act itself, in its body, applies to a variety of acts and persons, of which such title gives no appropriate and distinct information. In terms, the act refers to

"Any bank, banking corporation, association or firm, banking house, savings bank, banking exchange, brokerage deposit company, private bank, or any person, company or corporation engaged in whole or in part in banking, brokerage, exchange or deposit business in any way."

To be still more specific in attempting to state defendant's views, while the title of the act refers to banks, in its terms the enacting clause would apply not only to banks incorporated, but to entirely distinct concerns in a legal sense, viz., private banks; also to other distinct kinds of business, viz., individual bankers, brokers, or to any person engaged in whole or in part in the business of receiving deposits. It is not, and could not be, denied that the receiving and keeping of deposits to be called for on demand by the depositor is peculiarly the business of bankers; and a bank that did not receive deposits on trust, subject to such demand, would, upon our understanding, be a misnomer, and lack an essential element of such business.

Counsel quotes with approval Bouvier's definition of a bank:

"A place for the deposit of money. An institution, generally incorporated, authorized to receive deposits of money, to loan money and to issue promissory notes, usually known by the name of 'bank notes,' or to perform some one or more of these functions."

And under the last clause of this definition, which is in accord with the general understanding, the receiving of deposits, to be kept, and returned on...