Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

POSTAL SAVINGS SYSTEM-ACCEPTANCE OF DIVIDENDS ON DEPOSITS.

The statute of Indiana, under which the St. Joseph County Savings Bank, of South Bend, Ind., a depositary for postal savings funds, is incorporated, provides that the net profits of savings banks shall be distributed as dividends among the depositors but it does not authorize the payment of interest on deposits, and it is inconsistent with the laws of the State for savings banks to establish a class of depositors who shall receive both interest and dividends. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,

August 26, 1912.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of June 1, 1912, stating that the St. Joseph County Savings Bank, of South Bend, Ind., a depositary for postal savings funds, is incorporated under a State law which provides that its net profits shall be distributed as dividends among its depositors, and that in its account current for the month of April, 1912, the bank has credited the board of trustees of the postal savings system with a dividend of $2.

You wish to be advised whether the board of trustees is authorized to accept such dividends in addition to the 21 per cent interest which the bank is required to pay on its deposits of postal savings funds under section 9 of the act of June 25, 1910 (36 Stat. 816), which provides that "the sums deposited shall bear interest at the rate of not less than 2 per cent per annum, which rate shall be uniform throughout the United States and Territories thereof."

According to information received from the auditor of state of Indiana the St. Joseph County Savings Bank is incorporated under the provisions of an act to provide for the organization of savings banks, approved May 12, 1869 (Laws of 1869, special session, pp. 104-116), as amended. (Burns' Indiana Statutes, Revision of 1908, secs. 33483401.) Without going completely into the details of these statutes, I may say that they provide for the association of a certain number of persons for the purpose of organizing and managing a savings bank who are to conduct its affairs without, in general, any compensation, and who have power to adopt such by-laws, consistent with the laws of the State,

89760°-vo. 29-13-33

as they may think proper for transacting the business of the corporation. There is no capital stock, and the function of the bank is to receive deposits, make investment thereof, and make return of the profits therefrom to the depositors, less the expenses and the amount retained for reserve. Section 3363 provides:

"Every savings bank shall be authorized to receive on deposit any sum or sums of money that may be offered for that purpose by any person or persons * * * and to invest the same, and declare, credit, and pay dividends thereon, as herein authorized, and not otherwise: ***" Section 3364 provides:

"The sums so deposited shall be repaid to each depositor or his legal or authorized representatives, when required by him or by them, but at such times, and with such dividends from profits, and under such regulations as the board of trustees may prescribe, not inconsistent with the provisions of this act; * * * *

By section 3365 deposits made by aliens, minors, or married women shall be repaid to the depositor "with the dividends thereon.”

Section 3376 provides:

"All savings banks shall make up their accounts semiannually to the 1st days of January and July in each year; and all dividends or profits shall be divided, credited, or paid to the depositors on or before the 31st days of January and July, respectively."

Section 3381 provides:

66

It shall be the duty of the trustees, after deducting the necessary expenses and the reserve for the surplus fund * * * to divide as nearly as may be practicable all the remaining profits, *** ratably among the depositors, except as hereinbefore provided."

(The provision alluded to at the end of this section merely refers to a permissible discrimination in dividends between large amounts and small amounts, and between deposits remaining a longer or shorter time.)

Section 3382 provides:

"Any residue of profits remaining undivided after compliance with the provisions of the last section, shall be di

vided as often as once in three years among those who are depositors, when the distribution is made in such manner as the trustees shall direct, so as to be as equitable as practicable: * *

A report to the auditor of state is provided for, and among the liabilities the report must state (sec. 3389) "the amount due depositors, including the dividend credited to them" for the 1st day of January, "stating such dividend as a separate item; and any other debts against or claims upon such savings bank which may become a charge upon its assets"; "the amount deposited and the amount withdrawn during the previous year; the whole amount of interest earned; the amount of expenses, specifying separately the amount paid for services and the amount of dividends credited to depositors, for the year preceding said 1st day of January."

The statute nowhere expressly authorizes savings banks to borrow money or to pay a fixed, stipulated rate of interest on deposits.

It is clear that this Indiana statute purports to authorize savings banks of the pure, original type, without any feature of the commercial bank. In such a pure savings bank the depositors, while creditors to the extent that they may require the payment of their deposits after demand made in accordance with the regulations of the bank, are nevertheless in a sense partners or stockholders in the institution, entitled to share in its profits on the one hand, but bound to bear the losses on the other. The status of depositors in such banks has been examined in many cases, of which the following are examples:

In Bunnell v. The Collinsville Savings Society (38 Conn. 203, 206) the court, in holding that the society was entitled to charge a loss, arising from depreciation in its investments, pro rata among the depositors, said:

66* * *

6

In the case of Coite v. Society for Savings, 32 Conn. 173, the court say that savings societies are in fact large, incorporated agencies for receiving and loaning money on account of their owners. They have no stock and no capital. *** They are merely places of deposit where money can be left to remain or be taken out at the

pleasure of the owner.' Their assets consist in loans of money made by them for the benefit of their depositors from whom the money was derived."

In reaching the same conclusion upon the same point, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts said in Lewis v. Lynn Institution for Savings, 148 Mass. 235, 243:

"It thus appears that a savings bank is an Incorporated agency for receiving the moneys of depositors in small or moderate amounts, and investing them merely for the use and benefit of the depositors,

* *

66 * * * The fundamental idea has never been departed from, that all the funds and investments of a savings bank are held exclusively for the benefit and security of the depositors. This idea was, and still is, the corner stone of the whole system. There is no corporation, with any purpose or possibility of profit to itself, independently of the depositors; but the latter are to share whatever profit may be made in just proportion among themselves. The corporation is a mere agency for managing the moneys of the depositors.

66 * * * There is no absolute promise to repay to any depositor the full amount of his deposit, at all events. Such a promise to one depositor would imply that in case of loss he should be repaid out of the deposits of others. But the promise or undertaking of the corporation is the same to all. There is no promise to pay one at the expense of others. The promise is, in effect, to pay each depositor in full, with his dividends, provided the assets are sufficient; and if they are not sufficient, then to pay to each one his proportionate share.”

In Osborn v. Byrne, 43 Conn. 155, 160, where it was held that a depositor had no right if set off in the event of the insolvency of a savings bank, the court said:

66 * * * The depositors in savings banks bear the same relation to each other and to the assets of the bank that stockholders in other monetary institutions do to each other and to the property of the bank. Disastrous investments affect each in the same way; and in case of insolvency all that a party who owns deposits in the one case or stock

in the other can claim, is his just proportion of what remains at the final winding up of the institutions."

In Huntington v. Savings Bank, 96 U. S. 388, 394, 395, where the Supreme Court of the United States had under consideration a statute not dissimilar in any material respect to the Indiana statute, the court, after stating that the corporation could exercise no powers except such as are expressly given or are necessarily implied, said:

66

* * The title of the act incorporating it indicates its purpose; namely, an act to incorporate a national savings bank: and the only powers given to it were those we have mentioned, powers necessary to carry out the only avowed purpose, which was to enable it to receive deposits for the use and benefit of depositors, dividing the income or interest of all deposits among its depositors or their legal representatives. * This was the original idea of savings banks. country. * * *

* Very many such exist in this Indeed, until recently, the primary idea of a savings bank has been, that it is an institution in the hands of disinterested persons, the profits of which. after deducting the necessary expenses of conducting the business, inure wholly to the benefit of the depositors, in dividends, or in a reserved surplus for their greater security."

(The difference between the dividends paid to depositors in a savings bank of the pure type and interest paid on de-, posits is also pointed out by the court in Cary v. The Sarings Union, 22 Wall. 38.)

In Johnson v. Ward, 2 Bradw. (Ill. App.) 261, 274, the court, referring to the description of a savings bank given by Mr. Grant in his work on banking, said:

Manifestly a bank of the character thus described would be a mere trustee for the depositors, and its entire funds whether made up of the deposits themselves, or of the interest, gains, and accumulations thereof, would be trust funds held for the benefit of the depositors. The profit to the depositor would be not a rate of interest fixed and determined by contract between him and the bank, but his distributive share of the whole net profits and accumulations of the institution, whatever they might be. The depositors,

« AnteriorContinuar »