Case ID: tenn_21/html/0339-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Green, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Williams, Chalmers, et als. vs. Union Bank.
    1. The charter of the Union Bank of the State of Tennessee is a public law and need not be given in evidence. Although the corporation may be correctly denominated a private corporation, yet the law creating it is a public law.
    2. Evidence of acts of user is prima facie proof of the performance of the conditions required to be performed precedent to the time the bank was to go into operation.
    3. A recognition of a bank in a public law as a legally existing corporation, is, so far as third persons are concerned, conclusive evidence of its legal existence, against which nothing can be heard in a collateral way from such third persons.
    The president and directors of the Union Bank of the State of Tennessee instituted an action of assumpsit in the circuit court of Ufadison county, on the 2nd day of August, 1839, against Williams and Chalmers, as the makers of a promissory note for the sum of $2,250, and against Jameson and Keats as the endorsers thereof. The plaintiffs declared in the usual form and defendants filed a joint plea of non-assumpsit. On the trial at the regular term, Judge Read, presiding, much testimony was introduced in reference to demand and notice, which it is not necessary here to set forth. The defendants offered to prove that the gold and silver, required by the charter of the Bank to have been paid by the subscribers precedent to the commencement of banking operations by the corporation, had not been paid. This testimony was rejected by the court, to which the defendants excepted.
    Read, judge, charged the jury that the plea of non-assumpsit put in issue the existence of the corporation; that the plaintiffs must prove their corporate existence; that the charter granting the privilege of banking and proof that it was in operation as a bank, was sufficient evidence of its corporate existence.
    The jury returned a verdict in favor of the president and directors for the sum of $2,384 damages. A motion for a new trial was made, but overruled, and judgment rendered in conformity with the verdict. The defendants appealed in error to the supreme court.
    
      P. M. Miller, for plaintiffs in error. .
    
      McGorry, for defendants in error.
   Green, J.

delivered the opinion of the court.

The court is of the opinion that the charter of the Union Bank of this State is a public law, and need not be given in evidence.

1. A bank is created upon public considerations, to subserve public ends, and not for private purposes only. Its notes are intended to constitute the currency of the country, thereby becoming a medium of exchange for the public benefit. The profits that the stockholders may receive are incidental, but are not the primary object in passing the charter. Although, therefore, the corporation may be correctly denominated a private corporation, yet the law creating it is a public law.

2. Evidence of user under the charter is prima facie proof that the conditions which the charter required to be performed, precedent to the time that the bank was to go into operation, have been performed.

• 3. Repeated recognitions by the legislature, in various public laws, of the Union Bank asa legally existing corporation, is so far as third persons are concerned, conclusive evidence of such legal existence, against which, in this collateral way, no evidence of the non-fulfilment of the conditions upon which such legal existence was made dependant by the charter can be heard. Let the judgment be affirmed.