150 So. 917 | Miss. | 1933
This is an appeal from a decree of the chancery court of Humphreys county, rendered in the matter of the liquidation of the Isola State Bank, and directing the superintendent of banks to issue to the appellees a guaranty certificate for the full amount of their deposit in said bank.
The appellees filed a petition alleging that, at the time the Isola State Bank was taken over by the state banking department for liquidation, they had on deposit in said bank the sum of two hundred sixty-one dollars and ninety-three cents; that the superintendent of banks and the liquidating agent thereof had refused, after demand, to issue to them a guaranty certificate for said sum, and praying for an order directing them to issue to the petitioners the proper certificate. The superintendent of banks, in answer to this petition, denied that appellees were entitled to a guaranty certificate for the amount of their deposit, and averred that R.H. Hooker, who died prior to the closing of said bank, owned at the time of his death two shares of stock of said bank, of the par value of one hundred dollars each; that the petitioners as the sole heirs at law of said R.H. Hooker, deceased, became the owners of said stock by inheritance; that by virtue of their ownership of said stock the appellees were liable for the statutory superadded liability of the amount of their stock at the par value thereof; that the appellees' deposit in said bank at the time it closed had been offset against their stock liability; and that a guaranty certificate for the balance of said deposit remaining after thus discharging their statutory liability had been offered to appellees and had been refused by them. *98
On the trial of the cause it was admitted that R.H. Hooker, during his lifetime, owned two shares of stock in the Isola State Bank, and that the appellees were the sole heirs at law of the said R.H. Hooker, deceased, but the appellees offered evidence intended to prove that the deposit standing in their name at the time the bank closed represented insurance money that was exempt from all liability for the debts of the insured. The appellee Mrs. R.H. Hooker testified that as the beneficiary in an insurance policy on the life of her deceased husband she received the sum of six thousand dollars, and that of this sum she deposited about one thousand dollars in the Isola State Bank to the joint credit of herself and the appellee C.L. Hooker, and that the balance of two hundred sixty-one dollars and ninety-three cents represented insurance money which was exempt from all liability for the debts of her deceased husband, the insured. She admitted, however, that after she deposited this insurance money in said bank she subsequently made numerous small deposits of other money, which amounted to more than the balance on deposit at the time of the closing of said bank.
The argument of counsel for the appellees seems to proceed upon the theory that the stock liability on the two shares of stock owned by R.H. Hooker, deceased, is that of his estate, and that the money on deposit in the defunct bank was the proceeds of an insurance policy on the life of the deceased stockholder, which was exempt from liability for his debts. The proof fails to sustain the contention that the deposit in question was exempt insurance money, but rather establishes the fact that it was money of the depositors derived from other sources, but under our view of this case that fact is wholly immaterial.
It seems to be practically the universal rule that where a statute imposes double liability upon stockholders in insolvent corporations, enforceable for the benefit of corporate creditors, a stockholder, when sued by the *99
receiver to enforce such liability, cannot set off against his liability as stockholder an indebtedness owing him from the corporation. Reimers, Receiver, v. Larson et al.,
Affirmed.