Court Opinion

ID: 9674909
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:37:08.225072+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:30.166732
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Justice
(dissenting).
SDCL 51-17-15 provides that upon receipt of an application for a bank charter, the Director of the Division of Banking and Finance shall conduct an investigation and examination based on several factors relevant to the proposed bank and its relation to the community in which it desires to be located.
SDCL 51-17-16 provides:
Within one year after the filing of an application the commission shall consider the director’s findings and recommendations and all other available relevant information and shall in its discretion approve or disapprove the application, which action shall be subject to appeal.
At the outset of the hearing, Southern Hills Bank offered in support of its application a copy of the Director’s report. Appellants objected to the introduction of the report for the reason that deleted from the copy that was offered into evidence were the names of the persons whom the Director had interviewed in compiling the report and recommendation required by SDCL 51-17-15. Interestingly enough, although no explanation was ever offered for this occurrence, Southern Hills Bank had received an unexpurgated copy of the report prior to the hearing.
I agree with appellants that their due process rights to a fair hearing were impinged by the refusal of the Commission to provide them with a complete copy of the Director’s report. We have held with respect to the procedure to be followed at hearings in contested cases under the Administrative Procedure Act that:
The requirements of the law then are that where there are adversary parties they are accorded procedural rights that are consonant with due process. “The constitutional guaranty of due process of law applies to, and must be observed in, administrative as well as judicial proceedings, particularly where such proceedings are specifically classified as judicial or quasi-judicial in nature[.]” 2 Am.Jur.2d Administrative Law § 351 (1962).
Application of Union Carbide Corp., 308 N.W.2d 753, 758 (S.D.1981).
As we pointed out in the Union Carbide case, SDCL 1-26-18 spells out the rights of *316parties at hearings on contested cases, which rights include the reasonable opportunity to inspect all documentary evidence and to examine and cross-examine witnesses. Likewise, SDCL 1-26-19(2) provides that “[a] party may conduct cross-examinations required for a full and true disclosure of the facts.”
SDCL 51-16-36 provides in part that:
The records of the division shall be open to public inspection; provided, however:
(1) The director may withhold from public inspection any record for so long as he deems necessary for the protection of a person or bank or to be in the public interest; and
[[Image here]]
Any record of the division shall be made available upon order of a court of competent jurisdiction when cause is shown.
Whatever the purposes of SDCL 51-16-36, I cannot believe that they include the withholding of information from those parties who have a legitimate interest in objecting to an application for a bank charter. The legislature obviously deemed the report required by SDCL 51-17-15 to be an important part of the Commission’s decisional process when acting upon a requested charter. In the absence of equally specific legislative intent authorizing the withholding of the names of those who give information to the Director in the preparation of his report, I would hold that SDCL 51-16-36 does not authorize the Director to withhold information from those parties who object to a proposed charter while at the same time providing complete information to the applicant for the charter.
It is no answer to say that appellants could have called the Director as a witness and thus secured the requested information, for it cannot be presumed that the Director would have divulged more on direct examination than that which he would not vouchsafe prior to the hearing. Likewise, appellants should not have been expected to enlist the aid of the courts to view that which was an integral, essential part of the applicant’s case. In contrast to the situation that existed in Application of American State Bank, Pierre, 254 N.W.2d 151 (S.D.1977), appellants objected to the admission of an incomplete report, and appellant Custer County Bank made a written request for the disclosure of the deleted names prior to the hearing. The report appears to have constituted a significant factor in the Commission’s decision, for certain of the Commission’s findings of fact find no support elsewhere in the record made at the hearing.
I would hold that the Commission should not have received the expurgated version of the Director’s report into evidence and that in doing so the Commission trammeled upon appellants’ due process rights as recognized in Union Carbide, supra.
I also agree with appellants’ contention that the evidence submitted by Southern Hills Bank belies its contention that it intends to move its main office to Custer. The Custer office will in fact constitute a branch bank, in violation of SDCL 51-20^4, which prohibits the establishment of a branch bank
in a municipality of less than three thousand population where there is an existing national or state bank regularly transacting banking business, or in any municipality of three thousand population or more and less than ten thousand population where there are two or more existing national or state banks regularly transacting banking business; ...
(The 1980 census lists the population of Custer as 1,830.).
The state banking statutes do not define the term “main office.” In Application of Live Stock State Bank, Artesian, 252 N.W.2d 227 (S.D.1977), we affirmed the Commission’s finding that the applicant bank did intend in fact to move its main office from Artesian to Mitchell and to establish a branch bank in Artesian, although we did not explicate the evidence in support of that finding or outline any standards by which the term “main office” should be measured. Although Southern Hills Bank contends that “main office” means whatev*317er the Commission says that it means, certainly the Commission must use some established benchmarks against which to determine whether the new charter in the new location will actually represent the location of the main office or whether it is merely a subterfuge to circumvent the prohibition set forth in SDCL 51-20-4.
In Application of Berkeley Savings & Loan Ass’n, 115 N.J.Super. 302, 279 A.2d 718 (1971), the state commissioner of banking considered the following criteria in determining whether the proposed site of the financial institution would constitute the “principal” office:
(a) The office with the highest volume of accounts; (b) the office with the highest volume of loans; (c) the office at which the board of directors regularly meet; (d) the office where the greatest number of senior officers are permanently located; (e) the office to which reports are made and orders emanate; (f) the office which is officially designated as the principal office; (g) the office which is known to the public as the principal office; (h) the office where a majority of the key departments are; (i) the office where the payroll and bookkeeping records are kept.
279 A.2d at 722.
The Berkeley Sa:vings criteria, although perhaps not all inclusive, do provide at least some guidelines by which to measure the proposed move in the instant case. When so measured, the proposed bank in Custer fails to meet the definition of “main office.” The Edgemont office would have the highest volume of accounts and loans. The greatest number of senior officers would be permanently located in Edgemont. The computer department would remain at Ed-gemont, servicing the Custer office through telephone lines, just as the Buffalo Gap branch office of the Southern Hills Bank is presently being serviced. The Edgemont bank presently has sixteen employees, and the evidence does not reveal how many, if any, would be transferred to the Custer office or how many employees there would be in the Custer office. In sum, the evidence does not support a finding that the proposed new location would constitute the main office of Southern Hills Bank.
I also agree with appellants that the Commission erred in not requiring Southern Hills Bank to disclose the identity of the proposed directors of the new bank. SDCL 51-17-15(3) clearly requires the Commission to investigate the qualifications of the proposed new directors, and we have made it quite clear that each of the factors set forth in SDCL 51-17-15 must be considered. Application of American State Bank, supra; Valley State Bank of Canton v. Farmers State Bank of Canton, 87 S.D. 614, 213 N.W.2d 459 (1973).
The order appealed from should be reversed, and the case should be remanded to the circuit court with directions to set aside the Commission’s decision.