Opinion of the Court.

of a particular fund to the payment of the bills in question. It was, however, clearly recognized that an oral understanding, entered into in a transaction where a bill of exchange was delivered, might constitute an equitable assignment of a fund, for, in commenting upon the averments of certain facts on the subject of an assignment, Lord Chancellor Selborne said (p. 359): "That is the first part of the case, and of course, if proved, it would have been a very clear case of a contract for an equitable assignment."

In the light of these principles, we proceed to consider the facts certified, in order to ascertain whether in the transaction connected with the giving of the check in question there was either an express agreement to assign the fund, or to give a lien or charge thereon, or whether, if not express, such agreement is necessarily to be implied from the conduct of the parties, the nature of their dealings and the attendant circumstances. The facts, succinctly stated, are that the Keystone Bank, through its president, solicited the Fourth Street Bank to give to the former $25,000 of gold certificates, for which the Keystone Bank was to give its check against its reserve account in the Tradesmen's National Bank of New York City. At the same time that this request was made the president of the Keystone Bank made the further statement that his bank owed a balance at the clearing-house which it could not meet "because its funds were in the city of New York." and exhibited a memorandum showing the amount to its credit with the Tradesmen's Bank to be in the neighborhood of $27,000. In reliance upon such representations and the statements made supported by the memorandum exhibited, the Fourth Street Bank delivered to the Keystone Bank the certificates requested, and there was delivered a check for $25.000 upon the Tradesmen's National Bank of New York. The draft in question was at once forwarded to the city of New York, and was presented for payment at the Tradesmen's Bank on the following morning, when payment was refused. At the time of presentment the Tradesmen's Bank had to the credit of Keystone Bank $19.725.62 in cash and collection items amounting to $7181.70, in all $26.907.32.

Opinion of the Court.

Of this amount $18,056.21 had been remitted by the Keystone Bank on the day previous.

When we look at the situation of the parties and the character of the transaction disclosed by the facts just referred to, no difficulty is experienced in ascertaining the intent of the parties. Both were banking institutions — banks of deposit. They were located in the same city. They were not correspondents the one with the other, and there was no deposit account kept by the one with the other; indeed, so far as the usual course of commercial transactions was concerned, the banks were strangers. The application therefore by the Keystone Bank to the Fourth Street Bank for accommodation under these circumstances precludes the conception that the relation between the parties was purely one of a usual and customary nature.

It cannot be doubted that a mere request for the loan by the Keystone Bank from the Fourth Street Bank would have been so surprising that the contract would not possibly have been made without a statement of the reason which rendered the request necessary. It is equally clear that the mere statement of the situation which caused the request to be made would, in itself, from any standpoint of business prudence, have made it the duty of the Fourth Street Bank to refuse without full security. It follows that the same reason which imperatively required the Keystone Bank to disclose the cause for its request, also rendered it absolutely essential, in order to obtain the loan, that it indicate a specific source or means of payment outside of and beyond its mere general credit. In other words, that it should tender ample security for the loan which it requested. The deduction arises that, as it cannot be reasonably conceived that the loan would have been made without the reference to and assignment of the particular fund from which alone the hope of immediate payment was to be reasonably expected, the parties must have and did intend to create a particular appropriation, charge or lien on the property upon the faith of which they both dealt. The transaction, therefore, was a proposition to borrow on the one hand, accompanied with the disclosure that security was neces

Opinion of the Court.

sary and tendering the security, and on the other hand an acceptance of such proposal and an advance made on the faith of it. Not to conclude that such was the agreement and contract contemplated and actually entered into by the parties, would lead to the impossible and contradictory theory that the minds of the parties could not and would not have met on the subject of the loan unless a prerequisite link to that meeting of minds existed, and yet at the same time to hold that the minds had met without the existence of that prerequisite which was the very essence and necessary foundation of the agreement.

Considered in other respects, a like conclusion follows. The Fourth Street Bank, as stated, was under no obligation to grant the request of the Keystone Bank; it was to derive no pecuniary advantage whatever from the proposed transaction; it was not in any sense for the convenience of the Fourth Street Bank that the contract was made, and the bank clearly contemplated an immediate reimbursement, if it delivered the certificates asked for. Had the transaction been an ordinary one, that of a time or even demand loan made with a person in good credit in the line of his business, and not, as it was, an extraordinary transaction, we might well presuppose that it was the expectation of the Fourth Street Bank that the borrower should merely have on hand with the Tradesmen's Bank when the check was presented a sufficient amount to pay it.

But the Keystone Bank, in disclosing its hazardous situation and indicating the specific fund dedicated to the payment of the solicited accommodation, did not represent that it expected to further check against the Tradesmen's Bank before the check which it proposed to give might be presented. The statements made clearly implied to the contrary, exhibiting as they did the embarrassment of the borrowing bank, arising from the need of available cash to meet its clearings, and proposing a transaction by which the Fourth Street Bank would obtain from a bank, but a few hours distant, the prompt and certain payment of its advance.

As stated, this was manifestly not an ordinary mercantile transaction, but one of an extraordinary character, and when

Opinion of the Court.

we consider the situation and conduct of the parties, the disclosures made at the time of the contract, and weigh the probabilities of the case, it is impossible to infer otherwise than that it was intended that the particular fund in the Tradesmen's Bank should be not only the source from which payment of the check to be given should be made, but that the fund should be transferred and appropriated pro tanto for that purpose. It is of course true that the method adopted to evidence the appropriation was a check drawn generally upon the Tradesmen's Bank, but, as already stated, the authorities are clear that when it is established that it was the intention and agreement of the parties to a transaction that a check drawn generally should be paid out of a particular fund, such check, as between the parties, will be treated as though an order for payment out of a specific, designated fund.

It is not material, as affecting the rights of the Fourth Street Bank in the fund, that the sum with the Tradesmen's Bank was not exclusively a cash indebtedness, but in fact consisted partly of cash then owing and of money or drafts in the course of transmission to or collection by the New York bank. The receiver took no greater rights in the property of the insolvent bank, which came into his possession than that which the insolvent bank possessed. Scott v. Armstrong,

146 U. S. 499, 507.

As the Fourth Street Bank contracted and parted with its money on the faith of the representations of the Keystone Bank that there was to its credit, in the Tradesmen's Bank, a specific sum, and the fund which came into the hands of its voluntary assignee is the fund as to which the representations were made, the Keystone Bank and its assignee are in equity estopped from asserting, to the prejudice of the Fourth Street Bank, that the character and condition of the fund was otherwise than it was represented to be.

In answer to the suggestion, made in the argument at bar, that possibly the collection items may not have belonged to the Keystone Bank, but may have been the property of others for whom the bank merely held them for collection account, it suffices to say there is no intimation to this end in the facts

Syllabus.

stated. It is, consequently, unnecessary to determine any question as to priority of payment out of the fund, except that presented by the conflict between the Fourth Street Bank and the assignee in insolvency representing the general creditors of the Keystone Bank.

The first question propounded will therefore be answered in the affirmative, thus rendering it unnecessary to pass upon the second question certified, and

It is so ordered.

MR. JUSTICE GRAY, MR. JUSTICE BREWER and MR. JUSTICE PECKHAM dissented.

WALKER v. BROWN.

CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT.

No. 193. Submitted January 13, 1896.- Decided March 1, 1897.

Every express executory agreement in writing, whereby the contracting party sufficiently indicates an intention to make some particular property, real or personal, or fund, therein described or identified, a security for a debt or other obligation, or whereby the party promises to convey or assign or transfer the property as security, creates an equitable lien upon the property so indicated, which is enforceable against the property in the hands not only of the original contractor, but of his heirs, administrators, executors, voluntary assignees and purchasers, or encumbrancers with notice.

On the facts stated in the opinion of the court, which can with difficulty be condensed without omitting something which might be deemed essential, and applying to those facts the principle of law stated in the preceding paragraph, Held, that Walker & Co. had an equitable lien upon the bonds of Brown pledged to the Union National Bank, and that those bonds had been returned to Brown under such circumstances as to continue the lien against them in the hands of Mrs. Brown, to whom they had been given by him.

To dedicate property to a particular purpose, to provide that a specified creditor, and that creditor alone, shall be authorized to seek payment from it or its value, is to create an equitable lien upon it.

For reasons stated in the opinion interest is to be computed at the rate of six per cent, not at the rate of ten per cent.