Case ID: lock-rev-cas_1/html/0398-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

De Groot v. Van Duser, 20 Wend. 390.
    In S. Ct. 17 Wend. 172.
    
      Pleading.; Restraining Act; Foreign Banking Company.
    
    In this case, the Supreme Court held that an “ agreement to redeem the notes or bills of a foreign bank at an office kept by such bank in this state, is not a violation of the statute prohibiting unauthorized associations from keeping an office for the purpose of receiving deposits or discounting notes or bills, or issuing any evidence of debt to be loaned or put in circulation as money,” and such agreement maybe enforced by action. Such a contract is valid, although made by the president of a bank for the benefit of the bank in giving additional circulation to its bills in this state, and as the agreement does not bind the contractor to redeem bills prohibited to be circulated in the state, it will not avoid the contract, if he should be required to redeem such bills by the other contracting party.
    A contract, innocent in itself, will not be avoided because it may by possibility facilitate an illegal transaction; to render it void, the connection with the illegal transaction must be direct and not remote or conjectural: but
    The Court of Errors held, that as the plea alleging the illegal tendency and object of the contract averred that the agreement was entered into to aid the company in their business at their office in Wall St., for the purpose of discounting, &c., and that it did better enable the company to carry on their illegal operations, the fact must be taken to be true, that the averment was not of an impossible fact, and that the plaintiff should not have deprived the defendant of proving it by demurring to the plea, if he contested its possibility.
   Upon the first vote taken, a majority of the members present were for affirming the judgment of the Supreme Court, when it was discovered that a quorum was not present : and at the subsequent meeting of the court, the judgment was reversed by a vote of 14 to 6.