CASEY
v.
ADAMS
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A national bank that is a creditor in a local proceeding involving property seizure and sale may be sued in a state court located in the county where the property is situated, despite a federal statute limiting suits against national banks to courts in the district where the bank is established. The Supreme Court held that the federal statute governing suits against national banks applies only to transitory actions and does not exempt banks from the traditional common law rule that local actions must be brought where the property at issue is located.
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Me'. Chibe Justice Waite delivered the opinion of the court.
.The-Federal question in this case is whether a national bank can be sued in a State court in a local action in any other county or city than than where the bank is located. By sect. 5198, B,ev. Stat., it is -provided that “suits, actions,' and proceedings-'against any association under this title [The National Banks] 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 coiinty or city in which -said-association 'is located, having-.'jurisdiction'in similar cases.” This, we think, relates to transitory actions only, and-not to such actions as are by law local, in their character! Sect. 5136 subjects the' banks to suits at law or in equity as fully as natural persons, and we-see nowhere in the 'Banking Act any evidence of an. intention on the part of Congress to exempt banks from t.he ordinary rules of law affecting the locality of actions'founded on local things. The distinction between local and transitory actions is as old as actions themselves, and no one has ever supposed that laws' which prescribed generally where one should be sued, included such suits as were local in their character, either by statute or the common law, unless it was expressly so declared. Local actions are in the nature of suits in rem, and are to be prosecuted where the thing oh which they are founded is situated. To give the act of Congress the construction now contended for would be in effect to declare that a national bank could not be sued at all in a local action where the thing about which the suit was brought was not in the judicial district of the United States within which the bank was located. Such a result could never have been contemplated by Congress.
The proceeding in this case was clearly local in its nature. It related to property in the parish of La Fourche, which had been seized and sold under process from the District-Court of that parish. The proceeds of the sale were in that court, and could not be distributed until “a conflict of privileges” arising between creditors was settled. No personal claim was made against the bank. Nothing was wanted except to “class the privilege ” of the bank on the property seized “ according to its rank.” Whether, under the laws of Louisiana, the form of proceeding instituted for that purpose was appropriate, is not a question for us. The decision of the Supreme Court of the State as to that 'matter is conclusive.
Judgment affirmed.
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Citator
Cited By (18 total)
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Mercantile Nat'l Bank at Dallas v. Langdeau, 371 U.S. 555 (U.S. 1963)…eral Government, it was not subject to suit in state courts. This Court, noting that the suit was in a state court where the bank was located, sustained the power of the state court squarely upon the provisions of § 57. Subsequently, Casey v. Adams, 102 U. S. 66, reaffirmed the mandate of § 57, then Rev. Stat. § 5198, as applied to ordinary transitory actions but held that Congress did not intend it to apply to local, in rem actions. Many years later, in the course of deciding Cope v. Anderson, 331 U. S. 46…
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Mich. Nat'l Bank v. Robertson et ux., 372 U.S. 591 (U.S. 1963)…hat “[t]he instant action was a local action, not a transitory action, [s]ee § 25-404 R. R. S. 1943;5 § 45-154, R. R. S. 1943,” 172 Neb. 385, 394, 109 N. W. 2d 716, 722, and thus within the exception to 12 U. S. C. § 94 carved out by Casey v. Adams, 102 U. S. 66. This ground is likewise untenable. The applicable Nebraska venue statute on its face allows suit in more than one county and, in the case of foreign corporations such as petitioner, Nebraska Revised Statute § 25-408 6 [*594] appears to permit suit…
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Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co. v. W. Union Tel. Co., 234 U.S. 369 (U.S. 1914)…, suit sh ,11 be brought only in the district of the-residence of either the plaintiff or the defendant.” If this section be applicable' to suits which- are local in their nature, as well as to such as are transitory (as to which see Casey v. Adams, 102 U. S. 66; Greeley v. Lowe, 155 U. S. 58; Ellenwood v. Marietta Chair Co., 158 U. S. 105; Kentucky Coal Lands Co. v. Mineral Development Co., 191 Fed. Rep. 899, 915), it is clear that the District Court in which the suit was brought cannot entertain it, unles…
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