Court Opinion

ID: 9426894
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:12.24797+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:03.692604
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Blackmun,
with whom The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice White join, dissenting.
I fear that the Court in this case is driven by sentimentality to reach for what it perceives to be a “just result/' In so doing, in my view, it invades the domain of Congress.
The statute provides in unambiguous terms that “no attachment, injunction, or execution, shall be issued against such association or its property before final judgment in any suit, action, or proceeding, in any State, county, or municipal court.” 12 U. S. C. § 91. The Court today holds that the statute does not mean what it says: Debtors of a national bank may now obtain injunctions in a state court before final judgment. Perhaps the Court holds, as well, that the statute should apply only to protect banks that are insolvent or nearly so. See ante, at 317, 322. But see ante, at 315-316, 319, 321. Since the Court rides roughshod over the language of the statute, the legislative history, and a century of consistent interpretation by this Court and others, I cannot join either the Court’s opinion or its judgment.
I
At its core, the opinion for the Court rests on a postulated connection between the provision barring prejudgment state writs and certain preceding language of § 91 relating to preferential transfers and acts in contemplation of bankruptcy. From the supposed connection, the Court justifies its *325construction that the provision imposes a bar only on the creditors of the bank. Also from this postulated linkage flows the Court's somewhat ambiguous suggestion — one explicitly repudiated in the -decided cases — that the statute is limited to the context of bank insolvency. The legislative history, however, is clear that the presence of the provision in a section dealing otherwise with bank insolvency is the result of the revisers' accident. No limitation such as the Court today constructs was ever intended by Congress, or, indeed, has ever before been imposed.
The provision at issue was originally enacted in 1873 as an amendment to § 57 of the National Currency Act of 1864. Section 57 originally read:
“And be it further enacted, That suits, actions, and proceedings, against any association under this act, may be had in any circuit, district, or territorial court of the United States held within the district in which such association may be established; or in any state, county, or municipal court in the county or city in which said association is located, having jurisdiction in similar cases: Provided, however, That all proceedings to enjoin the comptroller under this act shall be had in a circuit, district, or territorial court of the United States, held in the district in which the association is located." 13 Stat. 116.
And the 1873 amendment to this section provided:
“That section fifty-seven of said act be amended by adding thereto the following: ‘And provided further, That no attachment, injunction, or execution shall be issued against such association, or its property, before final judgment in any such suit, action, or proceeding in any State, county, or municipal court.' ” Act of Mar. 3, 1873, § 2, 17 Stat. 603.
Thus, as originally enacted by the Congress, the provision *326had no connection whatsoever with the insolvency of national banks. It was sweeping in scope, barring all writs before final judgment in a state court. It is obvious that the statute in its original 1873 form would require reversal of the decision reviewed today.
As it happened, the amendment of 1873 was separated from the remainder of § 57 in a subsequent compilation of the federal statutes. At the hands of the revisers, the provision barring prejudgment writs found its current resting place as an addendum to what had been § 52 of the National Currency Act of 1864, a section dealing with preferential transfers. Rev. Stat. § 5242 (1874). The Court seizes upon the revisers’ accidental reconstruction to limit the amendment’s scope. It justifies its action by suggesting that Congress really intended to amend § 52 rather than § 57. The Court states: “If any mistake occurred, it seems at least as likely that the 1873 amendment was incorrectly added to § 57 as that the revisers, that very year, made an error which has gone undetected for over a century.” Ante, at 321-322. Thus, the Court by sleight-of-hand transforms a simple clerical error into an error made by Congress in the original placement of the amendment. This attempt to refashion the legislative history will not stand scrutiny.
First, although Congress in 1873 could have amended either § 57 or § 52, there is ample internal evidence that the addition of the amendment of § 57 reflects its considered choice. There can be no question, as the Court seems to acknowledge, ante, at 322 n. 14, that the reference to § 57 in the 1873 amendment was not a typographical error. The amendment was in “And provided further” form; § 57, unlike § 52 of the 1864 statute, already contained one proviso and so the use of “further” was grammatically proper only with respect to § 57. And the broad reading that is compelled by the language of the amendment attaches logically to the other provisions of § 57. The body of § 57 established venue “in *327any state, county, or municipal court ... in which said association is located,” and it was natural to place in the very same section any limitation on the power of those courts. Section 57 also contained a limitation on injunctions directed at the Comptroller of the Currency, and it therefore also was natural to place an amendment imposing a related restriction in the same section. In short, there is nothing to suggest that the amendment was placed by Congress in an unintended context.
Second, the Court’s confidence in the reliability of the compilation is misplaced. It is hard to believe that the revisers, faced with the task of compiling for the first time the mass of congressional legislation from 1789 to 1873, could have performed the delicate task of determining what Congress “really” intended in adopting the 1873 amendment and of “correcting” its error. It is far more likely that the revisers’ “placement” of the provision governing prejudgment writs was just one of the many errors that marred the first compilation. See M. Price & H. Bitner, Effective Legal Research 29 (3d ed. 1969); Dwan & Feidler, The Federal Statutes — Their History and Use, 22 Minn. L. Rev. 1008, 1014 (1938). Indeed the portion of § 57 dealing with venue in state courts was totally omitted in the first edition of the Revised Statutes and was rescued by inclusion in the second edition at the end of a section dealing with usurious interest rates. Act of Feb. 18, 1875, 18 Stat. 320; Rev. Stat. § 5198 (1878). Just as the Court would not, and has not, construed the venue provision established in § 57 as limited to cases involving usurious interest rates,1 so, too, it should not in good conscience construe the amendment to § 57 as limited to cases involving bank insolvency and preferential transfers.
*328II
If any doubts remain as to the intended scope of the provision, they should be settled by a century of consistent interpretation by this Court and other courts. The Court first construed the statute in 1888 in Pacific Nat. Bank v. Mixter, 124 U. S. 721. The Court quotes the following sentence from that opinion, ante, at 320-321:
“The fact that the amendment of 1873 in relation to attachments and injunctions in state courts was made a part of § 5242 shows the opinion of the revisers and of Congress that it was germane to the other provision incorporated in that section, and was intended as an aid to the enforcement of the principle of equality among the creditors of an insolvent bank.” 124 U. S., at 726.
Since the Court confines its quotation to this solitary sentence, it is able to draw from Mixter the proposition that “the statute can be given its full intended effect if it is applied to actions by creditors of the bank.” Ante, at 321. In its original context, however, the sentence was intended to explain how it happened that the revisers misplaced the amendment and that Congress acquiesced. The sentences immediately following the Court’s carefully selected single-sentence quotation are:
“But however that may be, it is clear to our minds that, as it stood originally as part of § 57 after 1873, and as it stands now in the Revised Statutes, it operates as a prohibition upon all attachments against national banks under the authority of the state courts. That was evidently its purpose when first enacted, for then it was part of a section which, while providing for suits in the courts of the United States or of the State, as the plaintiff might elect, declared in express terms that if the suit was begun in a state court no attachment should issue until after judgment. The form of its reenactment *329in the Revised Statutes does not change its meaning in this particular. It stands now, as it did originally, as the paramount law of the land that attachments shall not issue from state courts against national banks, and writes into all state attachment laws an exception in favor of national banks. Since the act of 1873 all the attachment laws of the State must be read as if they contained a provision in express terms that they were not to apply to suits against a national bank.” 124 TL S., at 726.
As this passage conclusively demonstrates, Mixter hardly provides the support the Court attempts to derive from it. And the revisers’ error, far from remaining “undetected for over a century,” as the Court states, ante, at 322, was exposed and overcome in the very first case in which the Court examined the statutory provision. The Mixter court gave the provision the broad scope that Congress intended.
The Court next considered the statute in Earle v. Pennsylvania, 178 U. S. 449 (1900). A national bank was holding a deposit of a customer who happened to be a defendant in an action that otherwise had no connection with the bank. The Court allowed the plaintiff in the action against the defendant-customer to attach the deposit, but only because “an attachment sued out against the bank as garnishee is not an attachment against the bank or its property, nor a suit against it, within the meaning of [§ 5242].” Id., at 454. The bank itself had no interest in the fund, and it was immaterial to it whether the deposit was considered the property of the plaintiff or of the defendant. The attachment thus was allowed because the bank was merely a stakeholder. Earle offers no suggestion of a distinction between debtors and creditors. In fact, the Court dissolved that portion of the attachment that ordered the sale, subject to the bank’s interest, of certain securities the defendant had pledged to the *330bank as collateral for a loan. Id., at 455. It is apparent that, unlike the deposit, the bank had an interest in the collateral.
The most recent case, Van Reed v. People’s Nat. Bank, 198 U. S. 554 (1905), is consistent with this unbroken theme. The Court quoted extensively from Mixter, and summarized that case’s “authoritative construction of the statute” in simple and unambiguous terms: “[N]o attachment can issue from a state court before judgment against a national bank or its property.” 198 U. S., at 559. The Court specifically held, in vivid contrast to the intimations of the Court’s opinion today, that the provision was not limited to cases in which the solvency of the bank was threatened. Ibid.
Not surprisingly, in light of the consistent and expansive interpretation of the statutory provision established by this Court’s cases, decisions of other courts are also consistent; they hold with near unanimity that all prejudgment writs issued by state courts and directed at the property of national banks cannot stand. See, e. g., Robinson v. First Nat. Bank of Plainview, 45 F. 2d 613 (ND Tex. 1930), aff’d on other grounds, 55 F. 2d 209 (CA5 1932); Garner v. Second Nat. Bank, 66 F. 369 (CC SDNY 1895), appeal dismissed, 79 F. 995 (CA2 1896); First Nat. Bank v. Superior Court, 240 Cal. App. 2d 109, 49 Cal. Rptr. 358, cert. denied, 385 U. S. 829 (1966); National Bank of Savannah v. Craven, 147 Ga. 753, 95 S. E. 246 (1918); Meyer v. First Nat. Bank, 10 Idaho 175, 77 P. 334 (1904); Chesapeake Bank v. First Nat. Bank, 40 Md. 269 (1874); Freeman Mfg. Co. v. National Bank of the Republic, 160 Mass. 398, 35 N. E. 865 (1894);2 First Nat. Bank v. La Due, 39 Minn. 415, 40 N. W. 367 (1888).
*331In short, in over a century of the application of the statute by this Court and others, no distinction has been drawn between suits by debtors and suits by creditors, and no limitation to bank insolvency has been imposed. And, of course, Congress’ continued acquiescence in this interpretation of the statute only reaffirms the correctness of the long-settled construction.
Ill
Even if the legislative history in the cases were less clear, I could not accept the distinction the Court today draws between applications for prejudgment writs by creditors and those by debtors. If the purpose of the provision is to protect the bank’s property, no such distinction logically follows. Surely, it must be acknowledged that an injunction interfering with a bank’s security interest in mortgaged property is as much an action against its assets as an attachment of its funds or property. And a debtor’s injunction directed at a bank’s security interest in a building is just as harmful as an attachment of bank property of comparable value by a creditor.3
*332I suspect that the only justification for the Court's decision today is its belief that the statute is unfair in its application. It should be noted in that regard, however, that any unfairness can be traced at least as much to the Tennessee procedure governing foreclosure as to the federal provision barring prejudgment writs in state courts. For if Tennessee law required judicial approval for a foreclosure, any perceived neéd for the instant preliminary inj unction would be eliminated. But even if any unfairness were attributed solely to the federal law, the decision whether to alter the statute remains with the Congress, not with this Court. Since I do not feel free to amend the statute, I respectfully dissent.

 Radzanower v. Touche Ross & Co., 426 U. S. 148 (1976); Mercantile Nat. Bank v. Langdeau, 371 U. S. 655, 558-562 (1963).

 The Court suggests that Mr. Justice Holmes’ opinion in Freeman Mfg. Co. is open to question because it preceded Earle and because Earle purportedly adopted a “contrary approach.” Ante, at 320 n. 10. This Court’s decision in Van Reed, however, which in turn succeeded Earle, cited Freeman Mfg. Co. with approval as a case that followed the "authoritative *331construction” of the statute. 198 U. S., at 559. And as to the “contrary approach” of Ewle, I note that the Van Reed Court stated: “We find nothing in the case of Earle v. Pennsylvania, 178 U. S. 449, which qualifies the decision announced in the Mixter case.” 198 U. S., at 559.

 Thus the Court’s first reason for its construction of the statute, ante, at 322 — the protection of national banks from insolvency — in fact supports the application of the statute to bar prejudgment state-court writs by both creditors and debtors. The other justifications offered fare no better. The second reason, ante, at 322-323' — -the failure to include garnishment among the prohibited writs — is easily explained by the fact that the seizure of property in which the bank has no interest does not adversely affect it. See Earle v. Pennsylvania, 178 U. S. 449, 454 (1900). Thus the absence of mention of garnishment hardly justifies a construction that would allow interference with a bank’s property by a debtor. The third reason, ante, at 323 — the alleged absence of an interest supporting the natural reading of the statute — is also easily answered. The statute’s obvious purpose *332of protecting the property of a national bank requires that interference with that property by aE, both debtors and creditors, be treated alike.