7 P.2d 117 | Kan. | 1932
The opinion of the court was delivered by
This is an action against a failed bank and its receiver to have the sum of $3,675 adjudged to be a trust fund and to be paid in full by the receiver out of the assets of the bank which had come into his hands. The trial court made findings of fact, concluded the claim should be allowed as that of a general creditor, but not as a preferred claim, and rendered judgment accordingly. Plaintiff has appealed.
Plaintiff, a prominent farmer and live-stock feeder, made a shipment of live stock to Kansas City and caused the proceeds, amounting to $2,576.51, to be credited, January 29, 1930, to his account in
In a case such as this, before a sum claimed can be allowed as a preferred claim, it must be shown that the money, or fund, constituted a trust fund, and that it passed into the hands of the receiver. (State Bank v. State Bank, 114 Kan. 463, 218 Pac. 1000.) In its simplest form the term “trust fund,” as used in cases of this character, means a fund placed with a bank, not to become a part of the general assets of the bank, but to be used for a specific purpose. If the bank fails and a receiver is appointed while that fund is held by the bank, and the fund passes to the receiver, it should be turned back to the one who placed it with the bank, or used by the receiver
With these general principles in mind let us analyze this case. Plaintiff placed no actual money or currency in the bank. What he did was to arrange, through the sale of his live stock at Kansas City, for the bank to have credit with its Kansas City correspondent, for which the bank gave him credit as a depositor. He then had an ordinary checking account in the bank, which he checked on for purposes other than the payment of his mortgage. The relation of debtor and creditor existed between plaintiff and the bank. How was that changed, if at all, by the transaction of February 24? On that date plaintiff went to the bank and asked its cashier for the bank to send its check, or draft, to the Central Trust Company for $3,675, and gave to the bank his check on his personal account in the bank. The cashier said he would do so, and, though somewhat tardy, he eventually did so. There was no deposit of money or funds at that time, nor was there any change made in the general assets of the bank. Appellant argues that the transaction was the same as though plaintiff had given his check to the bank, asked for
However, the trial court placed its decision primarily upon a lack of showing that the fund claimed to be a trust fund ever passed to the hands of the receiver. On that point the judgment of the court was correct. The only way the bank'ever received anything for the credit deposit it gave to plaintiff was by receiving credit with its Kansas City correspondent. At the time the bank failed that credit was substantially exhausted. The small credit it then had with its Kansas City correspondent as a part of the credit it obtained because of the transactions with plaintiff is not disclosed by the evidence.. The evidence, therefore, fails to show that any of the fund for which plaintiff received credit as a deposit passed to the hands of the receiver. In fact, plaintiff did not plead that this fund reached the hands of the receiver, and no serious effort was made to-show that it did.
By the time of the hearing of the motion for a new trial plaintiff had discovered that the books of the bank in the hands of the receiver tended to show loans had been made by the bank after plaintiff had made his deposit therein, and before its doors were closed and the receiver took charge, aggregating approximately $15,000, and asked permission of the court to reopen the case and to be permitted to make that showing. The request was denied, and appellant complains of that ruling. The ruling was not erroneous for the reason that a simple list of those purported loans would have established nothing beneficial to plaintiff. Nearly half of the notes shown by the books of the bank as loans were forgeries. No offer was made to show that the entries sought to be shown represented bona fide
The result is, the judgment of the court below must be affirmed. It is so ordered.