Opinion ID: 1120784
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The National Bank Act

Text: (1) The National Bank Act grants specified corporate powers to each national bank, including the power To elect or appoint directors, and by its board of directors to appoint a president, vice president, cashier, and other officers, define their duties, require bonds of them and fix the penalty thereof, dismiss such officers or any of them at pleasure, and appoint others to fill their places. (12 U.S.C. § 24, Fifth, italics added.) It has been established for almost a century that section 24 preempts all state law causes of action by a bank officer for breach of an employment agreement. ( Mackey v. Pioneer Nat. Bank (9th Cir.1989) 867 F.2d 520, 524-526 (hereafter Mackey ); Westervelt v. Mohrenstecher (8th Cir.1896) 76 Fed. 118.) We are aware of no decision to the contrary, and plaintiffs do not dispute the general rule of preemption. (2a) Seeking to avoid application of the general rule of preemption to their claims, plaintiffs contend as follows: (1) section 24 applies only to a bank's senior officers and not to branch managers, whose authority is so limited by bank policy that they do not qualify as other officers within the meaning of the statute; and, alternatively, (2) because they were neither appointed nor discharged in compliance with the Act, i.e., by the bank's board of directors, they are not officers subject to the at-pleasure provision. (12 U.S.C. § 24, Sixth.) Wells Fargo counters that plaintiffs are other officers within the meaning of section 24, having been so designated by the bank, and that plaintiffs' terminations were in accord with the bank's bylaws, adopted pursuant to the statute, and were thus proper under the Act. The premise of the argument is that the bank's board of directors was allowed under the Act to delegate hiring and firing decisions to certain corporate officers and that the bank properly did so. We examine the contentions of the parties in light of the language, history, and purpose of the relevant provisions of the Act.