CONFLICT OF LAWS-LIMITATION OF ACTIONS-DETERMINATION OF PLACE OF ACCRUAL OF ACTION TO ENFORCE LIABILITY OF STOCKHOLDERS IN INSOLVENT NATIONAL BANKS

Suits in equity were brought in the federal district courts of Ohio and Pennsylvania against resident shareholders of Banco Kentucky Company, a bank-stock holding corporation. The purpose of the litigation was to enforce an assessment under the National Bank Act on the shares of an insolvent national bank which Banco owned. Ohio and Pennsylvania have six year statutes of limitations on such an action. They also have borrowing statutes, barring suit on a cause of action no longer enforceable in the jurisdiction in which it arose.

The bank had been authorized to conduct its activities in Louisville, Kentucky, had engaged in business in no other place, and its receivership had been administered there. The Kentucky limitation was five years. Suit in each case had been commenced about five and a half years after the cause arose. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the cause of action arose in Kentucky and that suit was barred, while the Third Circuit Court disagreed.

On certiorari to the Supreme Court, held the judgment in the sixth circuit affirmed and that in the third reversed. Anderson v. Helmers, (U.S. 1947) 67 S. Ct. 1340.