Wareham v. Eagle Savings & Loan Co.
Opinion of the Court
This record, accompanied by the original exhibits, amply supports the findings of fact. On the one side were the plaintiff’s positive statements, against which were denials by the defendant’s secretary which became materially qualified on cross-examination. Asked what Mr. Wareham said when he came into defendant’s office, Mr. Wood, the secretary, testified: “ That he wanted — well, substantially he wanted an account that he could deposit, make payments and draw money out when he chose. Q. Did he say he wanted to subscribe for shares? A. Well, he certainly did, because I — Q. Did he request you, did he ask you, did he say that he wanted to subscribe for shares when he first came in? A. I can’t just recollect what his wording was. * * * Q. When Mr. Wareham came to the window with his money,
The secretary finally admitted that he then knew that plaintiff wanted to deposit money and not to borrow money, so that he could withdraw any or all of such deposit at any time. Also that he told plaintiff he could do so, and further that he did not say anything to plaintiff about any sixty-day notice before such withdrawal. Regarding the witness’ statement that he had told plaintiff he was subscribing for thirty shares, he testified on cross-examination: “ Q. You say you told Mr. Wareham that he was subscribing for 30 shares? A. Yes, sir. Q. What did Mr. Wareham say? A. I don’t recollect what Mr. Wareham said, but he subscribed for them. * * * Q. Did you tell him what was the face amount of the shares? A. No, I might not unless he asked me. Q. Do you recollect whether he did or did not? A. I don’t recollect it. Q. Did you tell him that he would be required to make payments on account of shares? A. I don’t recall just the conversation on those particular — on that particular thing. Q. Did you tell him that by subscribing for shares he would become a member of the defendant? A. Not necessarily. ' Q. Did you? Can you testify affirmatively that you told him that he would become a member? A. I only testified now to just that — answered to that question. Q. Did you tell Mr. Wareham that he might by subscribing to shares have to pay losses in case the company had losses? A. Why, no, I did not. Q. You knew that Mr. Wareham thought at the time he deposited that money that he was opening an account with you by which he could draw by check from time to time, didn’t you? A. No. Q. Didn’t you tell him that? A. No. Q. Did you tell him that he could deposit money with you and withdraw any or all of it as he pleased? A. Yes.”
We find no ground to question the conclusions of the learned court, who had the advantage of seeing the witnesses.
The point, however, remains, whether the facts found justify a decree for rescission.
Defendant’s future ability to pay a certain rate of interest
The peculiar forms of the “ signature card,” “ deposit slip,” and the “ pass book,” all simulated like incidents of accounts with a bank. Such close resemblances (save parts in finer print) would naturally mislead an unskilled customer. By them defendant was obviously held out as a bank, upon which checks passed current. The circumstance that the promise to pay was in futuro did not make these false appearances the less fraudulent.
A depositor in a genuine bank can withdraw his money ' although such right may be a qualified one. A subscription contract for shares, if bona fide, raises an indebtedness to be gradually paid off, followed by delivery of share certificates. Here this was industriously put out of sight by the practice of the depositors’ free checking, so that checks on defendant, like those of a real bank, passed through the New York Clearing House. Such convenient check books brought in new customers and quieted any doubts of those already enrolled. How indeed should they surmise that back of this complete guise of a regular bank lay a subscription contract for enough “ shares ” to absorb all their accumulated savings? The judgment, therefore, rightly treated the plaintiff as deceived and defrauded, and afforded him the fitting remedy of rescission.
Such disposition follows our prior rulings as to this same defendant. (Miller v. Eagle Savings & Loan Co., 174 App. Div. 581; Babeuf v. Eagle Savings & Loan Co., 180 id. 909; Wilcock v. Eagle Savings & Loan Co., Id. 911; Fox v. Eagle Savings & Loan Co., Id. 909; Payne v. Eagle Savings & Loan Co., Id. 910.) We are unable to follow Rosenkranz v. Eagle Savings & Loan Co. (180 App. Div. 388), which passed on testimony different .from that in the case here.
The judgment should be affirmed, with costs.
Blackmar and Kelly, JJ., concurred; Mills, J., read for reversal, with whom Thomas, J., concurred.
Dissenting Opinion
I find myself unable to agree with the majority opinion written by Mr. Justice Putnam, and feel compelled to dissent therefrom. As it was stated upon the argument that the defendant has many accounts like those of the plaintiff and, therefore, this decision may be of importance as a precedent, and also, as it is claimed in that opinion, in effect, that our decision herein “ follows our prior rulings ” in certain cited cases in which I wrote for the court or a majority thereof, I deem myself warranted in expressing my views herein at some length.
This appeal was argued and submitted with an appeal by the same defendant in each of two other similar cases against the same defendant, one by Cornelius A. Robb as plaintiff and the other by Alfred H. Bronson as plaintiff. (Robb v. Eagle Savings & Loan Co., 185 App. Div. 896; Bronson v. Eagle Savings & Loan Co., Id. 893.) All three cases were by consent of counsel tried together before the same justice at the same Special Term, upon substantially the same evidence. A separate decision was made in each case and a separate judgment entered thereon. This opinion is designed to apply to each of said actions and appeals.
Beyond the formal allegations as to the character of the defendant, etc., the gist of the complaint is: (a) That defendant represented to plaintiff that it was doing a banking business “ the same as in a savings or business bank,” and that it would receive from the plaintiff moneys and repay them to him, in whole or in part, at any time upon demand, with four per cent interest upon daily balances; (b) that plaintiff, believing each of said statements to be true and relying thereon, made with the defendant sundry deposits; (c) that each of the said statements so made by defendant was false and made with the intent “ to deceive arid did deceive and defraud plaintiff;” (d) that the contract so made between plaintiff and defendant in accordance with said representations was ultra vires and beyond the defendant’s powers; and (e) that the plaintiff, after discovering the falsity of said representations, had demanded from the defendant payment of the balance of his said deposits then outstanding, which defendant had failed to make.
Such determination, so far as it found fraud, was plainly unwarranted because the facts actually found constituted only a promise in a present transaction as to what the defendant would do in the future, that is, repay the money in a certain way. No statement as to any then existing fact was found, which in general, except perhaps in cases of confidential relation, must exist as a basis of fraud. The decision, however, was in effect a finding that the parties, as to the account or dealing, really at its inception made a contract that the plaintiff should receive at all events interest upon the .daily balance of his deposits at the rate of four per cent a year and should be entitled to withdraw the deposits and interest, or any part thereof, at any time upon demand; and that the defendant was forbidden by law to make such a contract. Upon that theory, under our decision in Miller v. Eagle Savings & Loan Co. (174 App. Div. 581), the plaintiff would be entitled to have the shares, which defendant had purported
The main contention of the appellant here is that the finding that such was the real nature of the contract between the parties is against the evidence.
Obviously the finding as to what the contract really made was rests mainly upon the evidence as to what defendant’s representative at its office said to the plaintiff when the plaintiff opened the account. In this respect the evidence is substantially the same in each of the three cases. Perhaps in the Wareham case it was as clear and favorable ‘to the plaintiff as in any of the others. In that case the plaintiff testified, in substance, that, having entered the defendant’s office, he was directed to the window or desk of Mr. Wood, who was defendant’s secretary and treasurer; and that he, the plaintiff, asked Wood if they did a banking business and if he could start a savings account, and that Wood replied “ yes,” and that their rate of interest was .four per cent with the special advantage that they allowed interest on every dollar, from the very day of deposit,, and that they would honor checks or drafts upon the fund at any or all times; and that further, upon such assurance, plaintiff opened the account and made the initial deposit, receiving a pass book, but no certificate or other evidence.
The appellant’s counsel criticises such testimony, or rather such summary of it, upon the ground that the part of the original interrogation as to the doing a banking business was really not answered by the witness. This criticism seems to be correct, but in at least one of the other cases the testimony to that effect was positive, and I think that in this, the Wareham case, it warranted the same inference. The pass book so delivered and received was put in evidence and has been submitted to us. Upon the two introductory pages there are. entries, then made, clearly and precisely showing that plaintiff was made a shareholder, and that those pages were the certificate of such holding. The second such page is headed by the number, in the Wareham case, “ 3100;” in the next line the words “ Class ‘ B,’ ” being the class of
The Appellate Division in the First Department has quite recently decided a similar appeal in a like case against this defendant, reversing a like judgment for a plaintiff and dismissing the complaint. (Rosenkrans v. Eagle Savings & Loan Co., 180 App. Div. 388.)
In that case the plaintiff had deposited money with this defendant under a similar pass book, nominally as the holder of some of its “ Class ‘ B ’ Savings Shares.” The action there was similar in character to this. Upon the trial at Special Term the plaintiff obtained a like judgment. He gave a similar narrative to that given by the plaintiff herein as to the inception of the account, that is, the transaction at its opening, and the statements then made to him by defendant’s representative. He claimed that he was thereby led to believe that he was making his deposit in what was equivalent to a savings bank. The. opinion held that, at least in view of the plaintiff’s ignorance, he being a foreigner and unable to read or write, it is entirely likely that he did so misunderstand the situation. That court, however, held that even if such representation was made, viz., in substance, that defendant was doing a banking business like a savings bank, there was no real falsity about it — in other words, that the situation or right of the holder of Class B shares in defendant is practically the same as that of a depositor in any ordinary savings bank, viz., the right at all events to receive his money back with the dividends, namely, interest upon demand, with previous notice of intent to withdraw if defendant required the notice, subject only to “ the risk of having his deposit reduced ratably with others in like position with himself,” if the defendant became unable through misfortune to repay all depositors in full. (180 App. Div. 392.) The opinion further stated that it was immaterial that in this defendant’s business “ the deposits were called 1 dues,’ the withdrawals ‘ loans,’ and the interest ‘ dividends.’ ” (180 App. Div. 393.) It seems to me that this view of the matter is entirely correct.
The question now arises: Is not the plaintiff in each of these cases, upon defendant’s own evidence and the undisputed facts, entitled to recover under our recent decision in the case of Wallis v. Eagle Savings & Loan Co. (180 App. Div. 719), decided by us on December twenty-ninth last? The evidence in this record shows that each plaintiff, before the
In these cases the defendant, to meet the complaints, had no need to plead as a defense the want of sufficient funds through losses or unsatisfied prior notices of withdrawal, if
The defendant, at the close of the trial, offered in evidence the order of this court, made on December 11, 1914, purporting to reduce defendant’s liability to its then members .0918 per cent. It was received in evidence over plaintiff’s objection, although it was not pleaded as a partial defense or otherwise, but that ground of objection was not specified. For the reasons stated by us in our opinion in the Wallis Case (supra) we do not consider that the mere fact of the making of that order is available to the defendant in such a case in partial reduction of the plaintiffs’ claim. As intimated by us in our second memorandum in the first Miller Case (176 App. Div. 883), it seems impossible in an action by a single member against the defendant to determine and adjust the equities between the defendant’s members by classes or individuals, in the distribution of losses. However that may be, in the instant cases that question is a mere abstraction, as the record does not present the facts upon which such a distribution can be made, even if the making of it be possible in such an action.
It remains to be considered whether or not the conclusions which I have reached are inconsistent with our decision in any one of the other cases against this defendant. I do not so regard it. In the first Miller Case (174 App. Div. 581) we practically sustained a finding made at the Trial Special Term, that the defendant had made with the plaintiffs there, borrowing members upon class “A” shares, a contract that they should pay the monthly dues “for not exceeding 144 months,” and that at the end of that period the shares should be matured, that is, fully paid in and the mortgage loan canceled, although the bond and mortgage given by the plaintiffs to the defendant provided that such payment should continue until the shares should mature. In that case, however, the plaintiffs, when they made their proposal to the defendant, signed a written application to the defendant and the same was approved and accepted by defendant’s executive committee. Such application was put in evidence, and it expressly provided for the said limitation of 144 months. As to that, therefore, the proof in the case was absolute and
In the later Bdbeuf, Payne, Wilcock and second Miller Cases (180 App. Div. 909, 910, 911) we upheld the decision of the Special Term to the same effect, but in each of those cases the controlling feature of a like written application appeared. In the Fox and Sogn Cases (180 App. Div. 909, 910), where the decision of the Trial Special Term had been the other way, we upheld such decision. In the Fox case there was no proof of such written application, but there was that proof in the Sogn case. In our memorandum in the latter case we stated that our decision in the first Miller case was not to be construed as overruling our decision in Eagle Savings & Loan Co. v. Beakey (163 App. Div. 860), in whch we had sustained a judgment in favor of a defendant in a like case where there was proof of such a written application and the same was produced and put in evidence, but that our view was that in such a case the finding of the Trial Term either way, upon the issue of the nature of the contract actually made, would have to be sustained here. Our such expression was used of the case where the element of such a written application — that is, a cotemporaneous writing containing
The Wallis case, decided by us last December, did not present the element of a claim that the real contract was other than that of a member or holder of shares of class “ C,” but merely presented the question of the rights of the plaintiff as such member and shareholder. Therefore, it constitutes no precedent for this case, except as to some collateral points therein discussed. I perceive, therefore, no real inconsistency between my views hereinbefore expressed and our decision in either of those prior cases.
My conclusion, therefore, is that the judgment appealed from in each of these cases should be reversed, with costs, and the complaint dismissed, with costs, without prejudice to any action by the plaintiff to enforce his rights as one of the defendant’s members, as a holder of some of its class “ B ” shares; and that in the Wareham case the following findings of fact in the decision and conclusions of law be reversed, viz., findings 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, and conclusions 1, 2 and 3; and that we allow and find the following of the defendant’s proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law in that case, viz., findings II, III, IV, VII and IX, and conclusions II and III, and that we should make the same disposition in each of the other two cases.
Thomas, J., concurred.
Judgment affirmed, with costs.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.