State v. Barkman
State v. Barkman
Opinion of the Court
The indictment alleges that the defendants were directors of The Osborn Bank
The demurrer to this indictment raises the sole question of the legal existence of this bank and its authority to carry on and transact business as a banking company and receive money on deposit. If the free-banking act, passed March 21, 1851, and acts amendatory and supplemental thereto were not in force in this state, on the date laid in the indictment, then the indictment charges no crime and the demurrer was properly sustained. If these laws were in force, then the exceptions of the prosecuting attorney must be sustained.
It is contended by counsel, appointed by the common pleas court to argue the exceptions in this court, that the free-banking act of 1851 limited the duration of the franchise or charters of the banking companies organized under its provisions to twenty-one years from the date of the act. Section 10 of the original act provided that every company so formed should continue a body politic and with corporate succession until the year 1872
It is further contended, however, that since the decision in the Bachtel case the free-banking act has been repealed by the Thomas banking act, passed May 1, 1908, by implication, and particularly by section 36 and section 91 of that act. Repeals by implication are not favored. It is only when a statute is in clear conflict with existing legislation upon the same subject-matter that the existing legislation will be held to be repealed by implication by the later act. Goff et al. v. Gates et al., 87 Ohio St., 142; Thorniley, Auditor, et al. v.
Section 36 of the Thomas banking act provides that all banks, savings banks, savings societies, societies for savings, savings and loan associations, safe deposit companies, or trust companies, savings and trust companies, and combinations of any two or more of such corporations, heretofore incorporated in this state and having paid in the amount of capital stock required by this act to enable them to commence business may, if they so elect, avail themselves of the privileges and powers conferred in that act. The method is provided for certifying such election to the secretary of state and superintendent of banks, and it is further provided that no such election shall be made except upon the vote of at least two-thirds of the capital stock at a meeting of the stockholders, thirty days’" notice of which meeting, and of the business to come before it, had been given by a majority of the directors in a newspaper published and of general circulation in the county where such corporation has its principal place of business. This section further provides that after April 1, 1910, every such corporation or association shall in all respects conform their business and transactions to the provisions of this act. This provision does not conflict with the free-banking act of 1851. It does not declare that banking companies organized under that act shall go out of existence, but rather it is provided that they shall in all respects conform their business and transactions to the provisions of this act. In other words, it clearly con
It is insisted because it may not be required to comply with the provisions of sections 1 to 77, inclusive, of the Thomas act before April 1, 1910, that necessarily it must comply with these provisions after that time or go out of business, but if this construction were the correct one, still it does not affect the question before us, because there is no provision in this section that the failure to comply ipso facto forfeits the charter of a banking company theretofore established and that thereafter it will have no power or authority to transact a banking business. The most that could be claimed for such construction is that the state of Ohio could, if it elected so to do, compel such banking company to comply with the provisions of sections 1 to 77, inclusive, of the Thomas act, or have its charter declared forfeited by a court of competent jurisdiction. There is no claim that that has been done in this case. Neither section 36 nor section 91 of the Thomas act is in conflict with the provisions of the free-banking act, and neither of these sections, nor both together, effect a repeal by implication of the free-banking act of 1851 and laws amendatory and supplemental thereto.
If there were any doubt whatever upon this proposition all doubt would be removed by the provisions of section 35 of the Thomas act. That section provides in plain and unequivocal language
The judgment of the common pleas court sustaining the demurrer to the indictment was erroneous, and the exceptions of the prosecuting attorney thereto must be sustained.
Exceptions sustained.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.