Court Opinion

ID: 9650478
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:39:22.716291+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:22.181027
License: Public Domain

On Motions for Rehearing.
PER CURIAM.
The motion for rehearing of City of Fort Worth contends that the case of McNair v. Knott, 58 S.Ct. 245, - L.Ed. -, just decided, holds that the Act of June 25, 1930, 12 U.S.C.A. § 90, validated and cured ultra vires pledges by a national bank made to secure deposits of public funds if state banks could make such, although the bank had failed and was still in receivership before the act was passed. We do not so understand the decision. No such situation was before the court. On the appointment of a receiver the rights of everyone concerned become fixed.
The motion is denied.
On the motion for rehearing made by the appellees, if the procedure they propose to supplement the record in order to prove that the fault of the delay in bringing the case to trial was not theirs be permissible, no change should be made in our judgment. If it be assumed that the delay was not the special fault of the appellees, it remains true that a great delay has happened and an oppressive amount of interest, nearly $60,000, is demanded; that the right of the bank sought to be asserted is not a contract express or implied to pay money with interest, but to recover damages for a conversion of personal property of the bank; that the act of conversion was done in good faith and was not regarded by the bank or its receiver as a conversion and they refused to sue for it; that the bank owes money to the city equal to the value of the property converted which it would not have received but for the pledge of the converted property, rendering it a great hardship to force the city to pay interest to the bank while the bank cannot pay even the principal of what it owes the city. According to the Texas Commission of Appeals, St. Louis & S. W. Ry. Co. v. Seale & Jones, 267 S.W. 676, and like authority exists elsewhere, interest to increase damages is not a right, but its allowance is discretionary in cases of tort. Yet further the appellees had to appeal to equity to be heard at all, and a court of equity will not lend itself to what is inequitable. Irrespective of whose was the fault of the delay, we are of opinion that the chancellor was warranted in refusing to increase the damages by an allowance of interest.
This motion for rehearing also is denied.