Court Opinion

ID: 9463448
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:07:38.195278+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:07.439786
License: Public Domain

HENLEY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The majority holds that in view of Missouri’s restrictions on branch operations by Missouri banks and trust companies, including “pure” trust companies, Mercantile Trust Company, a national bank, is prohibited by virtue of the McFadden Act of 1927, 12 U.S.C. § 36, and the Act of September 28, 1962, P.L. 87-722, 76 Stat. 668, 12 U.S.C., Cum.Supp., § 92a, from operating the trust office in Clayton, Missouri, which office is fully described in the record and in the opinion of the majority. I respectfully disagree.
My dissent is based in part on the fact that it seems to me that in determining that the trust office in question is a “branch” within the meaning of 12 U.S.C. § 36(f) the majority is following the line of reasoning that two of my colleagues and I were not able to accept in Nebraskans for *721Independent Banking, Inc. v. Omaha Nat’l Bank, 530 F.2d 755 (8th Cir.), remanded for further consideration in the light of supervening Nebraska legislation, 426 U.S. 310, 96 S.Ct. 2616, 48 L.Ed.2d 658 (1976).1 I refer specifically to the concurring opinion of Judge Lay, 530 F.2d at 764, and to the dissenting opinion of Judge Webster in which I joined, 530 F.2d at 764-67.
As the majority concedes, the question of whether a given financial facility is a “branch” within the meaning of § 36(f) is a federal question and is not controlled by state ideas of what constitutes a branch bank or other financial institution. We recognized that principle in State of Missouri ex rel. Kostman v. First Nat’l Bank in St. Louis, 538 F.2d 219 (8th Cir. 1976), wherein we held that so-called customer-bank, communications terminals operated off premises by a national bank constituted “branches” within the meaning of § 36(f) since they were capable at least of accepting deposits and causing them to be credited to the accounts of the depositors.
Conceding arguendo that it is possible for a facility maintained by a national bank to be a branch even though it does not receive deposits, cash checks, or make loans, I do not think that it can be said that a facility is a branch within the meaning of § 36(f) merely because it may perform some function or furnish some service, other than accepting deposits, cashing checks and making loans, which banks customarily provide.
When the McFadden Act was passed in 1927, it was well knov/n to Congress that the operation of trust departments and the furnishing of trust services was not an insignificant part of the business of banks, and I feel that if Congress had intended to include in its definition of a “branch” a trust office such as the one involved in this case, it would have said so just as it specifically mentioned the accepting of deposits, the cashing of checks, and the lending of money.
While what is now § 92a authorizes national banks to offer fiduciary services to the same extent that they may be offered by state banks or trust companies, § 92a says nothing about where such services may be offered by national banks, nor does it limit the number of places at which such services may be offered.
It should be kept in mind that §§ 36 and 92a were not passed by Congress for the purpose of restricting the operations of national banks. Rather, they were passed for the purpose of enabling national banks to compete with state banks on at least a plane of equality. For example, the McFadden Act itself was obviously the aftermath of the holding of the Supreme Court in First Nat’l Bank in St. Louis v. State of Missouri, 263 U.S. 640, 44 S.Ct. 213, 68 L.Ed. 486 (1924), that as the law then stood national banks could not operate branches, a situation which placed them at a competitive disadvantage in relation to state banks in states that permitted branching.
In the last analysis, the question of whether a national bank can lawfully perform a given function at a given place is a question of federal law, although in this context, as in others, state law may supply the governing federal law or may be considered as the source of federal law. See First Nat’l Bank in St. Louis v. State of Missouri, supra, 263 U.S. at 656, 44 S.Ct. 213, and McClellan v. Chipman, 164 U.S. 347, 357, 17 S.Ct. 85, 41 L.Ed. 461 (1896).
But, unless Congress has so prescribed, a national bank is not prohibited from engaging in a particular activity at a particular place simply because a state bank or other financial institution cannot under state law engage in the same activity at the same place or in the same circumstances.
The Missouri statutes2 dealing with banks and trust companies do not purport *722to regulate or restrict the activities of national banks as such. Nor could Missouri constitutionally forbid a national bank to do what it is permitted to do by governing federal law. If it happens that a national bank can do something that a state bank cannot do, it is open to the state to broaden the authority of its own institutions to match that of the federal ones.3
In sum, I agree with Mercantile and with the Comptroller that Mercantile’s trust office in Clayton is not a branch, and that its continued operation is not prohibited by the McFadden Act or by § 92a.

. Following receipt of the mandate of the Supreme Court, this court remanded the case for further consideration by the district court, 539 F.2d 673 (8th Cir. 1976).

. V.A.M.S. § 362.105(1) provides that no bank or trust company in Missouri shall maintain a branch bank or trust company or receive deposits or pay checks except in its own banking *722house otherwise than is provided in § 362.107. The section last mentioned permits Missouri banks to operate certain drive-in facilities within the cities in which the banks are domiciled. Section 362.107 is not involved in this case.

. Indeed, while the Omaha Nat’l Bank case that has been mentioned was pending, the Nebraska legislature adopted a bill that may permit Nebraska state banks to do what the Omaha National Bank was doing. It was that legislation that caused the Supreme Court to remand the case for further consideration in the light of the enactment.