Case Name: First National Bank of Clarion versus Gruber
Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1879-01-06
Citations: 87 Pa. 468
Docket Number: 
Parties: First National Bank of Clarion versus Gruber.
Judges: Before Agnew, C. J., Sharswood, Mercur, Gordon, Paxson, and Trunkey, JJ. Woodward, J., absent.
Reporter: Pennsylvania State Reports
Volume: 87
Pages: 468–476

Head Matter:
First National Bank of Clarion versus Gruber.
1. A bank is a private corporation and its charter a private act to be pleaded and proven as all other private acts, and unless so pleaded and proven the court will not take judicial notice of its provisions.
2. It was contended that under the Act of Congress establishing national banks, those institutions have a right to charge and receive whatever amount of interest any banks of issue chartered by the state have a right to receive, and that there being in existence state banks of issue authorized to charge and receive more than six per cent interest, the court was bound to take judicial notice of the fact. Held, that the court was not bound to take judicial notice of such institutions unless their charters were produced and proven.
3. What constitutes a “ bank of issue” discussed, and a review of the decisions and legislation relating to banks made by Agnew, O. J.
October 26th 1878.
Before Agnew, C. J., Sharswood, Mercur, Gordon, Paxson, and Trunkey, JJ. Woodward, J., absent.
Error to the Court of Common Pleas of Clarion county: Of October and November Term 1878, No. 38.
Debt by John Gruber against the First National Bank of Clarion.
The material facts are set forth in the report of the preceding case of Gruber v. The First National Bank of Clarion, which was a writ of error taken by the plaintiff to the same judgment. The questions considered and disposed of on the present writ are stated in the opinions of this court.
Wilson f Jenks, for plaintiff in error.
The court erred in charging that the plaintiff was entitled to recover the excess over six per cent., because the Act of Congress permitted the defendant to collect the same rate of interest or discount that under the laws of Pennsylvania others might charge. Other banks in Pennsylvania were permitted to charge over six per cent., to whatever extent the parties might agree. Vide act incorporating Franklin Bank of Philadelphia, Parnph. L. 1870, p. 737, sect. 4. The court should take judicial notice of banking acts. In Sedgwick on Statutory and' Constitutional Law, p. 119, the following language is used: “ Courts are bound to take notice of statutes establishing banks and regulating rates of exchange.” Then if the courts are bound to take judicial notice of the rates of exchange, in the case of The First National Bank of Mt. Pleasant v. Duncan Bro’s, 25 Pitts. Leg. Jour. 169, it is ruled that national banks, under the Act of Congress, may lawfully take or receive as high a rate of interest or discount as the highest under the state laws; which is largely in excess of six per cent.
W. L. Corbett, for defendant in error.
The Franklin Bank, referred to by counsel for plaintiffs in error, is not a bank of issue, and it is only where banks of issue, created under state charters, are allowed by the state to take a greater rate of interest than that allowed by the general law, that the right of national banks in that respect is enlarged or extended beyond the limit fixed by the general law. It is submitted that no bank of “ issue” was, at the time of the passage of the Act of Congress of 1864, or has been since, authorized to take interest in excess of six per cent.
January 6th 1879.

Opinion:
Mr. Justice Sharswood
delivered the opinion of the court,
As the judgment in this case has been just reversed on the writ of error, sued out by the plaintiff below, and a venire facías de novo awarded, it will be unnecessary to consider in detail the fifteen errors assigned on this record. It is quite sufficient to say that under the decision of this court in Lucas v. Government National Bank, 28 P. F. Smith 228, we find no error in the answers of the learned court below of which this plaintiff has any cause to complain. The objections to evidence which were overruled, were on the grounds of variance to counts in the declaration, upon which, in the end, the court did not enter judgment. There is technically an error in the judgment, according to the view of the learned court below. The counsel on both sides assumed that the last count in the declaration was three counts from its including in one demand debt for money had and received, money paid, laid out and expended, and money found due on an account stated. The entry of judgment on the last three counts was in fact an entry of judgment on the ninth, tenth and last count; the ninth and tenth being for the penalty. The judgment is wrong and must be reversed, although if the cause had not to go back for another trial, this error might be corrected in this court.
What the learned counsel for the plaintiff in error principally insisted upon in his oral argument, as ground for a reversal without a venire de novo, was a point which does not appear to have been made below and which does not arise on this record. It is contended that under the Act of Congress establishing the national banks, those institutions have a right to charge and receive whatever amount of interest any banks of issue chartered by the state have a right to receive, and that several banks of issue were incorporated and in existence during the period that the alleged usury was paid in this case, who might lawfully make any contract with their debtors on the subject of interest. In the Circuit Court of the United States for the Western District of Penhsylvania, the point was so ruled by Justices Strong and McKennan, reversing a judgment in the District Court: First National Bank of Mt. Pleasant v. Duncan, 25 Pitts. Leg. Jour. 169. The ruling in that case was on the rejection by the District Court of an offer to show that there were state banks of issue authorized by special charters to charge and receive more than six per cent. We give no opinion upon this question. No offer was made in the court below to give such evidence. It is contended now that the court will take judicial notice of the fact. No doubt in New York and other states the court will take judicial notice of institutions organized under a general banking law. Although the general banking law of April 16th 1850, Pamph. L. 477, is undoubtedly a public act, and where the charter of any particular bank is produced and proved, the court will take judicial notice of its provisions ; yet without such proof it cannot take notice of the charter. A bank is a private corporation, its charter a private act, to be pleaded and proved as all other private acts. It has been held by the District Court of Philadelphia, in Handy v. The Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Co., 1 Phila. R. 31, that an act which declares that loans and contracts, previously made by any person with a particular corporation, shall not be deemed usurious by reason of the corporation agreeing to pay more than legal interest, is a private act.
Judgment reversed and venire facias de novo awarded.