Richardson v. Cowen

ROTH, J., pro tem. The Marine Bank of Santa Monica (hereinafter referred to as “bank”) was closed for liquidation on December 18, 1931, on which date the Superintendent of Banks of the State of California took charge of the bank and continued in charge thereof during all of the instant proceedings. Prior to that time Harry Cowen, who was a director and stockholder of the bank, had deposited in a special savings account with the bank the sum of $3,369.02 in the names of Winifred Z. Cowen (who was also a stockholder of the bank) or Harry Cowen. Winifred was the wife of Harry. Sections 26 and 27 of the Bank Act provide that a bank having several departments is required to keep the books, deposits, reserves, cash, securities, investments and transactions relating to each department separate from each of the other departments (sec. 26, Bank Act, Stats. 1931, p. 341; vol. 1, Deering’s Gen. Laws, p. 241), and that all money and assets belonging to each department, whether on hand or with other banks, and the investments made, shall be held solely for the repayment of the depositors and other claimants of each such department until all depositors and other claimants of each such department shall have been paid. (Sec. 27, Bank Act, supra.) When Harry Cowen opened the special savings account the signature card which he signed stated on its face that it was a commercial department account. It appears also without contradiction that the account was always treated by the bank on its books and for all purposes as a commercial department account. Upon the liquidation of the bank, Winifred Z. Cowen filed with the state- banking department a claim which also recited on its face that it- was against the commercial department of the bank. The claim of Winifred against the bank was rejected as a general claim by the Superintendent of Banks, but was allowed as a deferred claim against the commercial department of the bank, to be paid only after the nonstockholding depositors should have been paid in full. At the time of the present litigation the bank in liquidating its assets had paid to creditors of the commercial department 42% per cent and to creditors of the savings department 65 per cent.

When the claim of Mrs. Cowen was rejected, as stated, she set out to prove that, although the special savings account was opened in the names of herself and husband, the account was [366]in fact her sole and separate property; and that, although there was stock issued by the bank to herself and to her husband, which stock stood on the books of the bank as so issued and so held, the stock was in fact her husband’s stock as his sole and separate property. To establish this position an action for declaratory relief was brought prior to the instant proceeding, entitled Winifred Z. Cowen et al. v. Edward Rainey, the then Superintendent of Banks, and the bank, being action No. 343999, records of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, hereinafter referred to as the Cowen case. By the Cowen case it was established that the money in the special saving account was the sole and separate property of Winifred Z.-Cowen, and that the money which purchased the stock of the bank which had been issued to both the Cowens was in fact the separate property of Harry Cowen.