Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles - The Ludwig von Mises ...

8 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cyclesanother depositor, as long as he maintains available to the originaldepositor oil or grain of the same quantity and quality as thosedeposited. In the deposit of money the same rule applies. If afriend gives you a twenty-dollar bill in deposit, we may considerthat he transfers to you the ownership of the specific bill,and that you may use it for your own expenses or for anyother use, as long as you keep the equivalent amount (in theform of another bill or two ten-dollar bills), so that themoment he requests you repay him, you can do so immediatelywith no problem and no need for excuses. 88 Coppa-Zuccari may have expressed this essential principle of the irregulardeposit better than anyone when he said that the depositaryrisponde della diligenza di un buon padre di famigliaindipendentemente da quella che esplica nel giro ordinariodella sua vita economica e giuridica. Il depositario invece,nella custodia delle cose ricevute in deposito, deve spiegare ladiligenza, quam suis rebus adhibere solet. E questa diligenzadiretta alla conservazione delle cose propie, il depositarioesplica: in rapporto alle cose infungibili, con l’impedire cheesse si perdano o si deteriorino; il rapporto alle fungibili, colcurare di averne sempre a disposizione la medesima quantitàe qualità. Questo tenere a disposizione una eguale quantità èqualità di cose determinate, si rinnovellino pur di continuo esi sostituiscano, equivale per le fungibili a ciò che per leinfungibili è l’esistenza della cosa in individuo. (Coppa-Zuccari,Il deposito irregolare, p. 95)Joaquín Garrigues states the same opinion in Contratos bancarios(Madrid, 1975), p. 365, and Juan Roca Juan also expresses it in his articleon the deposit of money (Comentarios al Código Civil y CompilacionesForales, under the direction of Manuel Albaladejo, tome 22, vol. 1, EditorialRevista del Derecho Privado EDERSA [Madrid, 1982], pp. 246–55), inwhich he arrives at the conclusion that in the irregular deposit the safekeepingobligation means precisely that the depositarymust keep the quantity deposited available to the depositor atall times, and therefore must keep the number of units of thesort deposited necessary to return the amount when it isrequested of him. (p. 251)In other words, in the case of the monetary irregular deposit, the safekeepingobligation means the demand for a continuous 100-percentcash reserve.