City of New York Insurance v. Mobley
City of New York Insurance v. Mobley
Opinion of the Court
1. The decision of this court in While County Bank v. Clermont State Bank, 37 Ga. App. 268 (140 S. E. 767), is to the effect that the prohibition contained in the banking laws of Georgia (Ga. L. 1919, p. 199, art. 19, sec. 18; Park’s Code Supp. 1922, § 2280 (a) ), against a bank issuing “any certificate of deposit except in exchange for lawful money of the United States, or for checks, drafts, or bills of exchange which are the actual equivalent of such money,” is designed to prevent a bank from pledging its credit and increasing its liability to depositors by trading its certificates of deposit for any instrument not the equivalent of cash; but that, since banks are authorized “to discount bills, notes, or other evidences of debt” (Ga. L. 1919, p. 188; Park’s Code Supp. 1922, § 2278 (a) ), and the law presumes that every man, in his private and official character, does his duty and obeys the mandate of the law until the contrary is proved (Truluck v. Peeples, 1 Ga. 3, 5; Bond v. Central Bank, 2 Ga. 92, 108), it will not be taken that a bank has violated the first-quoted provision of the banking act upon its merely being made to appear that a certificate of deposit has been issued to a customer in an amount representing the proceeds of a note discounted for the depositor upon the same date, the presumption being that the discount of the note was bona fide and independent of any condition or understanding that its purchase price would be discharged by the customer’s acceptance of a time certificate of deposit. Tn that ease it was held that the theory on which the plaintiff holder of a time certificate of deposit, which had been issued by the defendant bank to its customer on the same date that it had discounted a note for the customer, and in the amount represented by the proceeds of the note, would be entitled to recover involved two transactions, the discount of the note to the bank, and the subsequent purchase by the customer of the time certificate with the proceeds thereof; that the theory under which the defendant bank would be entitled to prevail was that there was only one transaction, the discount of the note to the bank for and in consideration of its time certificate.
2. In the instant case the time certificates of deposit sued on were issued' to the plaintiff insurance company not in consideration of notes transferred to the bank by the insurance company, but in consideration of the purchase of such time certificates by the agent of the insurance
3. The verdict in favor of the superintendent of banks in the instant suit, to establish the claim of the plaintiff holder of the time certificates of deposit as a depositor of the defunct bank issuing the certificates, was not authorized, and must be set aside.
Judgment reversed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.