delivered the opinion of the Court.
The appellant in this case, now twenty-two years of age, and entitled to receive a distributive share of an estate upon reaching twenty-five years, complains that by breaches of trust by executors or trustees of the fund, in depositing it and keeping it on deposit in the Central Trust Company of Frederick, now in the hands of the bank commissioner as receiver, it has been lost; and he prays that they be required to make restitution, and be personally charged with the amount. There is no dispute of the trust, or of the amount of money, $28,719.39, belonging to it and lost. The suit is solely one to charge the appellees with the loss by reason of a breach of their
The trust arose under the will of a Cephas M. Thomas, late of Frederick County, who died in 1919. The residuary estate of the testator was bequeathed to Donald T. Zimmerman, Madeleine N. Zimmerman, and Eugene Zimmerman, children of Daisy T. Zimmerman, “ to be divided among them equally share and share alike and to be paid to them when and as they respectively arrive at the age of twenty-five years,” with contingent limitations over. The interest on each share was to be invested annually, and constitute a part of the corpus of the trust fund, until the particular child should reach twenty-one years of age, and during the four remaining years was to be paid over to the child. And power was given to use parts of the fund or the interest, if needed, for the maintenance, education, and support of the children before they should reach the age of twenty-one. No trustee or trustees were named in the residuary clause. It was followed by a clause appointing George H. Thomas and Emory L. Coblentz executors of the will, and a codicil substituted Newton A. Fulton in the place of Mr. Thomas.
The executors filed their first and final account of their administration in the Orphans’ Court on May 9th, 1921, and it was on that day duly approved. Thereafter, they continued in the management of the trust under the residuary clause, assuming that this was the intention of the will. And in the year 1925, proceeding as executors and as “executory trustees,” as they stated, they prayed that the court of equity assume jurisdiction of the administration of the trust. Code, art. 93, sec. 10. And the oldest of the children being then about to arrive at the age of twenty-five years, they sought and obtained the authority of the court to sell securities and real property received in the estate, all then marketable at a premium, in order to have cash to distribute exactly equal amounts as the respective children should reach the specified age. The results of the sales were duly
The second Zimmerman child, Madeleine, reached the age of twenty-five years on June 1st, 1926, and was paid her share later.
On May 14th, 1930, ¡the Central Trust Company, of which Emory L. Coblentz, one of the executors, was president, and had been president since its organization in 1913, purchased the assets and assumed the liabilities of the Walkersville Savings Bank, and continued that bank as a branch of the trust company. The charter and legal existence of the Savings Bank, and the business carried on by it, remained undisturbed. But all deposits were taken over and mingled as deposits of the trust company. No authority for continuing the fund held for Eugene Zimmerman on deposit under the changed circumstances was sought or given. On the evidence the question of necessity for it appears to have been overlooked. The executors relied upon counsel to advise them in performance of the trust, and counsel did not raise any question of necessity of approval by the court. Making the change without that approval is one of the grounds of the charge of breach of trust.
The parties have argued a question of the character in which the appellees so continued to hold the fund after they had rendered their final account in the orphans’ court of the administration Of the estate; whether they held as executors awaiting distribution, or in a second capacity, as trustees and distributees, under
The will in this case repeatedly speaks of the fund as a trust fund to be administered as described, and the executors repeatedly refer to themselves as trustees, or as holding and administering a trust. But the duties were such as might be included in the duties of a deferred' distribution by executors, or in those of trustees by that name, indifferently. They were similar to those found imposed upon executors in Hindman v. State, 61 Md. 471, and other cases cited above, and are commonly found intrusted to trustees. Coudon v. Updegraf, 117 Md. 71, 83 A. 145. No other than the executors having been designated in this will, and the executors having in that capacity had the court assume jurisdiction of the performance of the duties, this court concludes that the holding should be considered as that of executors.
Holding a trust fund in the form of a general bank deposit is always undesirable, except as a temporary expedient, because as the money is mingled with that of other depositors, leaving the trust only a simple debt of the bank, equivalent to that on a loan without security, it lacks the assurance of safety which should be secured for trust funds, and which would be secured by investments owned by the trust exclusively. 1 Am.L. Inst. Restatement, Trusts, sec. 180d; Strauss v. United States Fid. & Guar. Co. (C.C.A.) 63 Fed. (2nd) 174; Whitecar’s Estate, 147 Pa. 368, 23 A. 575; Barney v. Saunders, 16 How. 535, 545, 14 L.Ed. 1047; Fenwick v. Clarke, 4 De Gex., F. & J. 240; 3 Bogert, Trusts & Trustees, sec. 598; Carey v. Safe Dep. & Trust Co., 168 Md. 501, 178 A. 242. And of course increase of risk in a particular case requires increase of care. The continuation
The continuation of the single share of Eugene Zim
But authority to invest in the specified form of security is not authority to continue the investment under all circumstances. On the contrary, there is a duty on a trustee to present to the court forthwith any known condition, or condition which reasonable watchfulness would discover, and which might render it advisable that the investment be changed, and obtain its further order. Jones v. Stockett, 2 Bland, 409, 426.
With respect to apprehension of danger from the condition of the company, the executor Fulton was, of course, in a position differing from that of his coexecutor, the president of the company. Fulton was president of the Walkersville Bank at the time of its taking over by the company, and he was continued in that position, but nominally only. He was not an officer of the trust company, which now held all the assets, and had no authority with respect even to the business of the Walkers-ville Bank as ¡a branch. For his information as to the company’s condition he was, as he said, left dependent upon the published statements, tested and approved as they were by state officials for the very purpose of protecting and giving assurance to depositors, and upon facts known generally; namely, that the trust company had a million dollars and more of capital, and that its
In considering the circumstances of the depositary, the court is not concerned precisely with determining whether it was at a given time solvent or insolvent. And it is not concerned to place blame for bringing dangerous conditions into existence, or for permitting them to develop. The inquiry is whether conditions exhibited to the one executor, however they may have arisen, were at any time before September 2nd, 1931, such as would then have moved a reasonably prudent man with the same knowledge to change the depositary or otherwise invest the fund, or to recommend that action to the court.
From the time of the organization of the company in 1913 to the spring of 1929, the capital stock had been in
The evidence does not completely show the conditions of the company at any one time before its closing on September 2nd, 1931, or the development of the circumstances that led to the closing. Market values of much of the assets are not given. The meaning of some transactions is not made clear. As early as April of 1929, shortly after an issue of $200,000 new stock, the Cumberland Steel Company, which had been keeping a large amount of money on deposit in the trust company, at five per cent, interest, gave notice of a desire to withdraw $100,000, and the trust company replied that, because of the general tightness of money, and the very lean period it was passing through, this would be a hardship, and it would prefer to make an adjustment of interest payable on the deposit, offering a total return of seven per • cent.
On September 4th, 1929, 40,000 additional shares of stock were issued, under an arrangement for a sale of them to Hambleton & Co., a firm of bankers of Baltimore. The price of $30 a share brought $1,200,000, and of this $400,000 was added to the capital, and $800,000 to surplus. It was made a condition of the purchase by Hambleton & Co. that some long-term securities, notes, and
Hambleton & Co. required also that a guaranty of assets should be obtained, and Coblentz and other individuals, directors, stockholders, or others interested in the company, entered into two agreements with the trust company and Hambleton & Co., dated September 25th, 1929, undertaking to pay the trust company one year from that date the unpaid balances of all of certain notes listed in the agreement, and to purchase at book values all of certain named securities then remaining unsold. The aggregate amount of the obligations undertaken exceeded at first $2,500,000, but this was reduced by a substitution of securities.
For reasons not made clear, the sale to Hambleton & Co. was short-lived, and in the latter part of 1929 the stock bought upon the conditions recited was bought back by the Blue Ridge Securities Company at an ad
In April, 1930, a Blue Ridge Investment Company, all the stock of which was taken by Coblentz, was formed to take over all the stock of the Blue Ridge Securities Company.
In the spring of 1930, the guarantors of the notes and securities formed & fourth subsidiary corporation, a Guarantors Investment Corporation, took over as a loan the assets guaranteed, gave its note to the trust company for them, and pledged the assets as collateral security. The guaranty agreement was not carried out on the date of payment.
The agreement for the acquisition of the Walkersville Savings Bank in the Spring of 1930 required a delivery of 15,000 shares of the trust company stock in exchange, and these the company purchased from the Blue Ridge Company at a valuation of $48.67 a share, apparently the trust company shares received back from Hambleton & Co. at $31.10. In payment to the Blue Ridge Company, assets equalling in value $48.67 a share were transferred, showing a loss of $94,200 to the trust company, which was written off on its books.
The summer of that year, 1930, was the summer of the severe drought, and because of its consequence in disabling the farmer borrowers, the trust company, in the opinion of Coblentz, suffered from it worse than any other bank in Maryland. The effect is not stated in figures, except that balances on transient deposits dropped as low as ¡an average of sixteen per cent.
The Cumberland Steel Company, having its money on a special deposit in that summer, announced a wish to withdraw $300,000, but was persuaded by the trust company to agree on a schedule of withdrawals over the ensuing six months.
At that time a surety company asked that it be relieved of a bond of the trust company on which it was surety, and a bond was obtained from another company on a condition that collateral security be given by an officer or director. The condition was not exactly complied with; the collateral having been supplied by the device of furnishing securities of the trust company to an employee, substituting the employee’s note, and then turning the securities over to the surety company.
The condensed statements of the company’s assets and liabilities in December, 1930, and June, 1931, show a liability then on bills payable in excess of the cash and reserve, or that the entire amount of cash and reserve represented borrowed money.
In January of 1931, a director, Thomas B. Hayward, was appealed to by Coblentz to provide the company with $90,000, to pay pressing bills, and he did so by borrowing the 'amount from the Union Trust Company, and turning it over to the Central Trust Company. His own understanding was that he had made a loan of the amount to the trust company for a short period; but it was entered as a deposit. Upon a demand of the Union Trust Company, the amount was reduced by $10,000.
In February of 1931, the Cumberland Steel Company
The last increase of capital stock was made in the spring of that year, upon the recommendation of a financial adviser before whom the condition of the company was laid, and who answered that it was necessary either that drastic reductions be made in the loans, or that new stock be issued. The issue was of only $500,000, but an effort was made to raise ‘$1,500,000, the remainder, of $1,000,000, to be used for other purposes. Syndicates of officers and directors were organized to subscribe to stock unpaid and not otherwise subscribed to; in other words, to underwrite the issue, and for stock which they took, amounting to fifty-five or sixty per cent of the issue, they gave notes to the company and pledged the stock as collateral security for them. Collections by the syndicates, with payment to the company, reduced the amount payable, but on June 29th, 1931, $768,020 was still due
In June of 1931, the Wardman Company, of Washington, $2,400,000 of the subordinate obligations of which were held by the trust company, passed into the hands of receivers.
Weekly statements were made up and presented by the company to its directors or to its executive committee every Tuesday, and in every one except two, from and including July 7th, to the time of closing, it appeared that the cash reserve was below the legal requirement of fifteen per cent. Code, art. 11, sec. 62 (as amended by Acts 1931, c. 503) and section 66.
At that time three-quarters of the assets had been pledged. The four subsidiary corporations mentioned were debtors of the trust company in a total amount of more than $6,000,000, exceeding the value of their assets many times. Officers of the company stood indebted in over $400,000, without ability to pay if the company should fail. The syndicates formed to take stock or guarantee assets, made up chiefly of officers or directors, stood indebted in larger amounts.
The affairs of the company were placed in the hands of the bank commissioner on September 2nd, 1931, after a conference held in Baltimore at the request of the president, with the Governor of the State and several bankers. The bankers having declined to extend further credit to the company, the receivership was inevitable.
In the absence of a more intimate knowledge of the company’s affairs, and of the meaning of some proceedings, than the record affords, these incidents, selected from among many referred to, can be recited only in a somewhat disconnected form. Some of them may be susceptible of explanations other than that of pressing need of money, or unusual weakness in the assets. But with all allowances for the possibility of other explanations for details, there is sufficient to prove that the receivership and loss of the deposit were due, not to difficulties arising suddenly at the beginning of September, 1931, but
As has been stated, the evidence shows that the co-trustee, or coexecutor, Fulton, exercised supervision of this trust for both. But knowledge which only the executor Coblentz, of the two, possessed, was the basis of the care required, and should have moved him to action. It is true it may be difficult for a banker himself to make a withdrawal in acknowledgment of the unsuitableness of a deposit in his bank for trust funds. The fact bears witness to the conflict of interests which may arise when a trust fund is deposited in the trustee’s own bank. 3 Bogert, Trusts & Trustees, sec. 598. But a court could
The decree appealed from must be reversed, and the cause remanded for a decree to be passed in accordance with this conclusion, holding the executor Coblentz liable and the executor Fulton not liable.
Decree affirmed in part and reversed in part, and cause remanded for a decree in accordance with this opinion, with costs.