Foley v. Hill (1848) — Deposits Reclassified as Bank Property
artifactMoney & Finance
The 1848 ruling that means the money in your account is not yours.
Who they are
The House of Lords, deciding Foley v. Hill on 1 August 1848.
What they do
It settled that when you deposit money, the bank owns it. You are not an owner whose property is being looked after — you are just someone the bank owes.
How it works
Lord Cottenham put it plainly: the money 'is, to all intents and purposes, the money of the banker, to do with it as he pleases... he is not answerable to the principal if he puts it into jeopardy, if he engages in a hazardous speculation.' That is what makes lending out your deposit legal rather than theft.
Why it matters
The site already tracks the same move being made to shares in 1994 — buyers stopped owning stock and started owning a claim against a broker. This is that move, done to money, 146 years earlier. Twice is a pattern, and the pattern is what matters here, not who did it.
The engine's record — word for word
House of Lords, 1 August 1848. The ruling that ownership of a bank deposit passes to the bank. Lord Cottenham: 'The money placed in the custody of a banker is, to all intents and purposes, the money of the banker, to do with it as he pleases; he is guilty of no breach of trust in employing it; he is not answerable to the principal if he puts it into jeopardy, if he engages in a hazardous speculation.' The depositor becomes a creditor owed a sum, not an owner of property held in trust. Rothbard tracks it as the culmination of a chain — Devaynes v. Noble (1816), then Judge Grant's holding that 'money paid into a banker's becomes immediately a part of his general assets; and he is merely a debtor for the amount' — and cites the report at (1848) 2 H.L.C. pp. 36-37. ENGINE RELEVANCE: this is the same legal operation the engine already records at ucc_article_8 (1994), performed on money rather than securities, 146 years earlier — reclassify the holder from owner to claimant against an intermediary. Bears on divergence 'Settlement Architecture: Emergent Complexity vs Intentional Design' as RECURRENCE across asset classes and centuries; the engine records the repetition and does not read intent from it. Apex (b) structural recurrence; name no holder.
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