Federal Land Bank of St. Louis v. Priddy, 295 U.S. 229 (1935)
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Federal Land Bank of St. Louis v. Priddy
No. 594
Argued April 5, 1935
Decided April 29, 1935
295 U.S. 229
CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF ARKANSAS
Syllabus
1. Rulings by a State court that a Federal Land Bank is a foreign corporation within the meaning of the State’s attachment statute, and that an attachment of its property was authorized by the state law, present local questions not open to review by this Court. P. 231.
2. Federal Land Banks are federal instrumentalities, with a governmental function, and the extent to which they are amenable to judicial process is a question of congressional intent. P. 231.
3. Section 4 of the Federal Farm Loan Act provides that Federal Land Banks "shall have power . . . to sue and be sued . . . as fully as natural persons;" they are given some of the characteristics of private business corporations, and the remedies afforded to their creditors by the Act are the same that it affords to creditors of Joint Stock Banks, which are privately owned corporations, organized for profit to their stockholders. Furthermore, the Act expressly exempt Federal Land Bank, but not Joint Stock Banks, from taxation.
Held:
(1) That the liability of Federal Land Banks to suit includes, by implication, the process of execution and attachment. P. 232.
(2) The question is reserved as to whether attachment would be allowable if shown to interfere with any function performed by such bank a a federal instrumentality. P. 237.
4. Immunity of corporate government agencies from suit and judicial process, and their incidents, is less readily implied than immunity from taxation. P. 235.
5. Semble that the Act passed by Congress in 1873, amending § 2 of the National Bank Act of 1864 by providing that no attachment or execution shall issue against a national bank in any State court before final judgment, was a recognition that the liability of such bank to suit "as fully as natural persons" under the Act of 1864, extended to such process by implication. P. 236.
189 Ark. 438; 74 S.W.2d 222, affirmed.
Certiorari, 294 U.S. 700, to review a judgment refusing a writ of prohibition to restrain a state judge from proceeding with an action against a Federal Land Bank begun by attachment.