Court Opinion

ID: 9686526
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:53:07.440938+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:19.791186
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring in result).
Although I agree with the treatment of the issues by the author and accordingly concur in the results of the case, I rebel at the citation of Independent Community Bankers Ass’n v. State, 346 N.W.2d 737 (S.D.1984) as authority. Ostensibly, that ease stands for the proposition that “[wjords used in the South Dakota Codified Laws are to be understood in their ordinary sense and statutes are to be liberally construed with a view to effect their objects and to promote justice.”
In my opinion, Independent Community Bankers Ass’n v. State is an execrable decision which prostituted our state constitution and, when washed upon the sands of time, shall go down in constitutional infamy.
The entire purpose of Senate Bill 256 of the 1983 South Dakota Session Laws, as outlined in Section 1, was supposedly to generate income for South Dakota’s economy. Senate Bill 256, a bill sponsored by the Governor of this State, has absolutely nothing to do with promoting justice and I bitterly resent Senate Bill 256 being equated with justice. Economics, yes — justice, no. The South Dakota Legislature approved Senate Bill 256 which allowed national bank holding companies to acquire state bank charters in South Dakota and to then buy or start insurance companies.*
Apparently, the author would cite Independent Community Bankers Ass’n as authority, also, for a “liberal construction” of statutes to effect their objects. It is true that Independent Community Bankers Ass’n cites two cases in this Court relative to a liberal construction of title and subject matter. However, those two cases pertain to construction of a statute from a standpoint of determining its constitutionality. Constitutionality of a statute is not in question in this ademption case and to cite Independent Community Bankers Ass’n somehow, someway, as authority is fallacious.

 Several out-of-state national bank holding companies, upon passage of Senate Bill 256, immediately began to make overtures to purchase small South Dakota banks. In some instances, overtures became reality. On January 5, 1984, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System issued an official statement relative to applications to acquire state-chartered banks in South Dakota, the gist of which is that " * * * the Board reached the tentative judgment that it could not approve the proposed bank acquisitions in view of present law and expressions of Congressional intent, subject to any further consideration by the Congress.” Thereupon, the applicants (out-of-state national banking corporations) " * * * requested the Board to suspend the processing of their applications.” Id. at 2. Though the State Legislature and the South Dakota Supreme Court have spoken, the patchwork of state and federal banking ownership and operation, tied in with a new insurance law in this state, hibernates. Independent Community Bankers Ass’n, as authority to decide this case, is not germane.