Court Opinion

ID: 9685777
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:02:45.403782+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:10.414472
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing
PER CURIAM.
Upon further consideration upon application for rehearing we have concluded that on the original hearing an erroneous construction was placed upon the Act which appears in the 1947 Pocket Part of the Code of 1940 as Tit. 5, § 128(3). It appears that the Act has been adopted in various other states. The necessity for it and its purpose is stated in Gendler v. Sibley State Bank, D.C., 62 F.Supp. 805, 810. The Act is designed to apply to a case where the deposit stands on the books of the bank to the credit of one or more persons and where adverse claim to the deposit is made *83by a stranger. In such event the bank would be justified in allowing withdrawals by the depositors unless the stranger had furnished the bond and affidavit required by the statute. Accordingly the statute does not apply to a case where the names of both claimants appear as depositors. In the present case L. H. Perdue was shown on the deposit contract as a depositor just as was Ellen Perdue.
In Baden Bank of St. Louis v. Trapp, Mo.App., 180 S.W.2d 755, in which this uniform statute was construed it is held that the term “adverse claimant” as used in this statute means one who is not shown on the books of the bank as a depositor. Under this construction of the statute the guardian of L. H. Perdue is not an “adverse claimant” to the deposit within the meaning of the statute and the bank had no right to exact a bond from him.
In the case of First National Bank of Portland v. Reynolds, 127 Me. 340, 143 A. 266, 268, 60 A.L.R. 712, it was held that the Maine statute, identical with the Alabama statute, does not deprive the bank of the remedy of interpleader. The Supreme Court of Maine said: “Nor can we agree that the demurrer should have been sustained on the ground that section 5, chap. 150, P.L. 1923, provides a complete, adequate, and exclusive method of which disputes concerning the title to bank deposits may be determined. That statute was intended to supplement, not to supersede, interpleader. It may be applied where interpleader will not lie. It is not unlikely that it might be properly invoked in certain cases in which inter-pleader would be an appropriate remedy. It is permissive. It provides one means by which the title to a bank deposit may be, under some circumstances, litigated. There are still other methods to reach that end. One of them is pointed out in Hatch v. Caine, 86 Me. 282, 29 A. 1076. But the remedy of interpleader is still an appropriate remedy, where interpleader will lie, notwithstanding the adoption of the statute in question.”
It is not pertinent to the issues in the instant case to pass upon the effect of the Act on the right of interpleader when as in the Maine case, supra, the adverse claimants are not both depositors of the fund in question. Pretermitting that question we do think that the statute does not prevent the-bank from pursuing an interple'ader suit when the adverse claimants are joint depositors of the fund.
Furthermore we now are satisfied that the bill filed in this cause presents a case for interpleader under' Equity Rule 36, which appears in the Appendix of Title 7, Code of 1940. Johnson v. Malone, 252 Ala. 609, 42 So.2d 505; Jennings v. Jennings, 250 Ala. 130, 33 So.2d 251; Clark v. Young, 246 Ala. 529, 21 So.2d 331.
In view of our opinion the application for rehearing is granted, the decree of this court sustaining the demurrer and remanding the cause is set aside and the decree of the lower court overruling the demurrer to the bill is affirmed,
FOSTER, LAWSON, SIMPSON, and' STAKELY, JJ., concur.
BROWN and LIVINGSTON, JJ., dissent.