Court Opinion

ID: 9852060
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:23:51.244073+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:21.592032
License: Public Domain

SCOTT, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The original purpose of 12 U.S.C.A., § 85, of the National Bank Act was to prohibit states from discriminating against national banks in favor of local financial institutions. It was intended to put “national banks on an equal footing with the most favored lenders in the state without giving them an unconscionable and destructive advantage over all state lenders.” First National Bank in Mena v. Nowlin, 509 F.2d 872, 880 (8 Cir. 1975). Section 85 thus was intended to insure intrastate competitive equality among state lenders and national banks.
The Fisher decisions and the majority of this court interpret § 85 to apply in situations involving interstate transactions. These decisions and the majority would allow a credit card subsidiary of a Nebraska national bank to have rights greater than those enjoyed by national banks located in Minnesota. The shield of the Act has thus been turned into a sword which can now be used by national banks located outside Minnesota against local national banks. National banks located outside Minnesota would not only have most favored lender status in Minnesota, but rights greater than the most favored lender. Surely this result is not within the contemplation of the National Bank Act.
*366As the majority opinion states, “The decisions reached in the Fisher cases injected a new attribute into the ‘most favored lender status,’ which resulted in allowing the interstate shipment of interest rates by national banks in their credit card programs.” Additionally, should a simple credit card transaction between a local citizen and a local merchant be construed as a bank loan by the Nebraska bank to a Minnesota citizen as Fisher proclaims without question? Minnesota should reject such an extension as a misinterpretation of the National Bank Act1 and exercise its own judgment. In such matters we are not bound by the Federal circuit court cases but only by holdings of the United States Supreme Court.2 E. g., United States ex rel. Lawrence v. Woods, 432 F.2d 1072, 1076 (7 Cir. 1970).
I would therefore affirm the trial court’s issuance of the permanent injunction against Omaha Service prohibiting the solicitation of credit card customers in Minnesota as a violation of Minn.St. 48.185.

. The trial court, in its order of December 22, 1976, stated: “To take a statute that has been on the books for almost 100 years and find in that law an intention, in 1976, to nullify a financial practice of 200 years standing is ludicrous and makes a mockery of the doctrine of legislative intent. If there be any intent in Congress it must be to preserve the financial customs of so long a standing in our Republic.”

. “While a decision of a federal court, other than the Supreme Court, may be persuasive in a state court on a federal matter, it is, nevertheless, not binding, since the state court owes obedience to only one federal court, namely the Supreme Court.” IB Moore, Federal Practice, Par. 0.402[1], p. 65 (2 ed.).