Metropolitan National Bank v. Claggett/Opinion of the Court

The first assignment of error is as follows: 'That the Metropolitan National Bank, the plaintiff in error, which was created under the act of congress entitled 'An act to provide a national currency secured by the pledge of United States bonds, and to provide for the circulation and redemption thereof,' approved June 3, 1864, is held liable to pay the bills described in the complaint, which were made by the Metropolitan Bank, a corporation created under the law of the state of New York, entitled 'An act to authorize the business of banking,' passed April 18, 1838.' The second defense set up in the answer, as we have seen, is that the defendant below (the plaintiff in error) became a national bank under the authority of the act of congress of 1864, entitled 'An act to provide a national currency secured by the pledge of United States bonds, and to provide for the circulation and redemption thereof,' and thereby acquired immunity from liability for the bank-bills issued by the state bank. The court found that the plaintiff in error did become a national bank, doing a banking business under the laws of the United States, but decided that it did not thereby acquire an immunity from liability to pay the bank-bills of the Metropolitan Bank of New York, upon the ground that the proceedings set up in the answer did not terminate the existence of the state bank, but simply effected a continuation of the same body under a changed jurisdiction. In this we think the record presents a claim for federal immunity raised by the plaintiff in error, and denied by the court, which brings the case within the jurisdiction of this court; and upon the authority of McNulta v. Lochridge, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 11, (decided at this term of the court,) the motion to dismiss is denied. But, as the record also shows there was color for the motion to dismiss, it is proper that we should proceed to a review of the judgment of the court below.

The question we are to consider here is, did the court err in holding that the plaintiff in error was not exonerated from liability either by its becoming a national bank, or by the proceedings for the redemption and retirement of its circulating bills issued while a state bank, which proceedings, it was claimed, were in strict observance of every requirement of the New York statute of 1859 in relation thereto, or by the statute of limitations of the state of New York? The court decided that the New York statute providing for a redemption of circulating notes, and for releasing the bank, if the notes were not presented in six years, applied alone to banks 'closing the business of banking;' that the change or conversion of the Metropolitan Bank into the Metropolitan National Bank did not 'close its business of banking,' nor destroy its identity or its corporate existence, but simply resulted in a continuation of the same body with the same officers and stockholders, the same property, assets, and banking business, under a changed jurisdiction; that it remained one and the same bank, and went on doing business uninterruptedly; and that, therefore, the statutory proceedings relied upon in the answer could not operate as a bar to the liability of either bank to pay the bills delivered by the Metropolitan Bank in 1861 to plaintiffs' intestate. This decision is so manifestly correct that it needs no argument to sustain it. The judgment is therefore affirmed.

The Chief Justice and BRADLEY and GRAY, JJ., took no part in the consideration and disposition of this motion.