Opinion of the Court. had been left wholly with the president and cashier, and that from the 10th of January to the stoppage of the bank the business was done as it had always been done. No bonds had been required of the officers for at least fourteen years; no meetings were held by the board of directors except the annual meeting and meetings to declare dividends or on some special occasion; no exchange committee had been appointed since 1875; and no committees had ever been appointed to examine into the bank's affairs, question its cashier, or compare its assets and liabilities with the balances on the general ledger. So that this manner of conducting the business had been sanctioned by long-continued usage, and the evidence tends to show that the method pursued must have been and was well known to many of its customers, including those who were creditors at the time of its failure, as well as its stockholders. All this was not as it should have been, and ought not to be countenanced, but the facts have an important bearing on the question whether Spaulding and Johnson should be held liable because they did not at once endeavor to change the entire methods of doing business and enter upon an exhaustive investigation of the assets. Would ordinarily prudent and diligent men have done so under similar circumstances? It is not so much a question of holding meetings, as of examination, searching and thorough; an overhauling of the bills receivable, and the detection of the uncollectible indebtedness which rendered the bank insolvent. Were Spaulding and Johnson guilty of negligence in that they did not make such an examination within ninety days after they became directors, in the teeth of the assurances of Lee, in whom they reposed confidence, who had been connected with the bank for so many years, and who owned two-thirds of the stock? The kind of examination required is indicated by the fact that although the evidence leaves it beyond question that the bank was insolvent on the third of October, 1881, its capital and surplus wholly exhausted, and losses incurred for thousands of dollars beyond that amount, complainant, after a year's close investigation, alleges that the bank was at that time Opinion of the Court. solvent, engaged in a prosperous business, with an unimpaired capital and a surplus, and with stock standing at fifty per cent above par. Indeed, the books and papers of the bank were kept in such a condition that even the cashier swore that he did not suspect anything wrong in the management until April 10, 1882. There were, it is true, two transactions in violation of the provisions of the banking law, not entered on the books, and to which the learned circuit judge refers. On the 18th of January, 1882, Lee took $23,680 from the cash of the bank, which he replaced by a slip of paper with the amount on it in the cash drawer. This was called a cash item, and was thereafter counted as cash. It was reduced from time to time until on April 12 it was $12,405. On February 15, he took $16,737.50 in the same way from the bank's cash and placed a similar slip in the drawer. This was reduced by April 12 to $11,435. These transactions were not concealed from the cashier and subordinate officers of the bank, yet, in view of Lee's position and character, excited no suspicion, and the directors were not informed of the facts. Again, under section 5200 Rev. Stat., the total liabilities for money borrowed to any national banking association of any person, company, etc., should at no time exceed one-tenth part of the capital stock, but the discount of bills of exchange drawn in good faith against actually existing values, and of commercial or business paper actually owned by the person negotiating the same, is not to be considered as money borrowed. This provision was grossly violated, but while Lee testified in chief for complainant that the directors could have ascertained from an examination of the books, papers and notes whether or not the loans, which exceeded $10,000, were for discounts of bills of exchange or business paper, within the exception, he stated, on cross-examination, that it would not have been possible, from an inspection of the paper simply, or an examination of the books of the bank, or both, to have made the discovery, thus drawing a recognized distinction between bare inspection and thorough examination, a distinction also applicable to loans when the reserve was below VOL. CXLI-11 Opinion of the Court. fifteen per cent of the deposits, and generally. We are impressed by the evidence with the conviction that a cursory glance would not have been enough. Would it not have been the exercise of an extraordinary degree of care if these defendants had insisted, within the first ninety days, upon making such an examination? Certainly it cannot be laid down as a rule that there is an invariable presumption of rascality as to one's agents in business transactions, and that the degree of watchfulness must be proportioned to that presumption. "I know of no law," said Vice-Chancellor McCoun, in Scott v. De Peyster, 1 Edw. Ch. 513, 541, "which requires the president or directors of any moneyed institution to adopt a system of espionage in relation to their secretary or cashier or any subordinate agent, or to set a watch upon all their actions. While engaged in the performance of the general duties of their station, they must be supposed to act honestly until the contrary appears; and the law does not require their employers to entertain jealousies and suspicions without some apparent reason. Should any circumstance transpire to awaken a just suspicion of their want of integrity, and it be suffered to pass unheeded, a different rule would prevail if a loss ensued. But, without some fault on the part of the directors, amounting either to negligence or fraud, they cannot be liable." Nor is knowledge of what the books and papers would have shown to be imputed. In Wakeman v. Dalley, 51 N. Y. 27, 32, Judge Earl observed in relation to Dalley, sought to be charged for false representations in the circular of a company of which he was one of the directors: "He was simply a director, and as such attended some of the meetings of the board of directors. As he was a director, must we impute to him, for the purpose of charging him with fraud, a knowledge of all the affairs of the company? If the law requires this, then the position of a director in any large corporation, like a railroad, or banking, or insurance company, is one of constant peril. The affairs of such a company are generally, of necessity, largely intrusted to managing officers. The directors gen Opinion of the Court. erally cannot know, and have not the ability or knowledge requisite to learn, by their own efforts, the true condition of the affairs of the company. They select agents in whom they have confidence, and largely trust to them. They publish their statements and reports, relying upon the figures and facts furnished by such agents; and if the directors, when actually cognizant of no fraud, are to be made liable in an action of fraud for any error or misstatement in such statements and reports, then we have a rule by which every director is made liable for any fraud that may be committed upon the company in the abstraction of its assets and diminution of its capital by any of its agents, and he becomes substantially an insurer of their fidelity. It has not been generally understood that such a responsibility rested upon the directors of corporations, and I know of no principle of law or rule of public policy which requires that it should." And so Sir George Jessel, in Hallmark's Case, 9 Ch. D. 329, 332: "It is contended that Hallmark, being a director, must be taken to have known the contents of all the books and documents of the company, and so to have known that his name was on the register of shares for fifty shares. But he swears that in fact he did not know that any shares had been allotted to him. Is knowledge to be imputed to him under any rule of law? As a matter of fact, no one can suppose that a director of a company knows everything which is entered in the books, and I see no reason why knowledge should be imputed to him which he does not possess in fact. Why should it be his duty to look into the list of shareholders? I know no case, except Ex parte Brown, 19 Beav. 97, which shows that it is the duty of a director to look at the entries in any of the books; and it would be extending the doctrine of constructive notice far beyond that or any other case to impute to this director the knowledge which it is sought to impute to him in this case." We are of opinion that these defendants should not be subjected to liability upon the ground of want of ordinary care, because they did not compel the board of directors to make such an investigation and did not themselves individu Opinion of the Court. ally conduct an examination, during their short period of service; or because they did not happen to go among the clerks and look through the books, or call for and run over the bills receivable. Of course a thorough examination would have ascertained that the bank ought to be put into liquidation at once. Nothing that could have been done on or after the 10th of January would have saved it. Insolvent on the 3d of October, its condition had changed for the worse January 10. And it is worthy of notice that the persons or firms, losses by reason of advances to whom are named in argument as the main cause of the failure and basis of recovery, were all debtors of the bank October 3, 1881, some of them for a long time before, and all debtors January 10, 1882, and the figures of the experts seem to show that the amounts due from them at the latter date were not many thousand dollars greater in the aggregate on April 14, 1882. The indebtedness of Lee, his father and his wife was nominally less, while that of some of those through whom he appears to have conducted his operations was larger. According to him such increase in poor assets, as there was, was substantially attributable to increased loans made in the hope of carrying through parties already in debt to the bank, and he says that there was really no material change in the character of the paper between January 9 and the stoppage of the bank. But it is unnecessary to do more than refer to these matters as indicative of the uncertainty as to what losses would have been prevented if the bank had been wound up earlier than it was and as to the point of time to which the supposed liability should be referred, if an interlocutory decree had been entered. We are not disposed, therefore, to reverse the decree as to defendants Spaulding and Johnson, and although the case of Francis E. Coit was in some aspects different, and particularly in that he was a director for a longer period, we think it should take the same course. He was elected a director May 20, 1881, to fill a vacancy created by the death of George Coit. He was at the time an invalid, and by reason of his |