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SUIT AGAINST JUDGE KELLAM. South Dakota Supreme Justice Placed in a Peculiar Light. CHAMBERLAIN, S. D., Jan. 30.-(Special.) -Judge Kellam of the state supreme court is defendant in an important case which is to be tried at the term of court now in session here. The suit is brought by Receiver Tompkins of the Union Stock Yards State bank of Sioux City, and is to recover the sum of $7,237.99, which is claimed to be due the bank and secured by notes and mortgages. In his reply to the complaint of Receiver Tompkins, Judge Kellam admits that he executed the notes and mortgages by which they were secured, but expressly denies that they were executed for value received, but that they were given wholly without consideration of any kind. Kellam says the notes were simply "accommodation notes," and were given to E. W. Skerry, president of the defunct Sioux City bank, for the reason that Skerry and himself had for years been on terms of close business and social intimacy, and because Skerry requested his aid in signing the notes for the bank in order that they might be rediscounted, for the time being, and thus assist materially in carrying the bank safely over the financial shoals with which it was evidently surrounded at the time. Kellam further says it was understood that the notes would be taken up by the bank previous to maturity, canceled and then returned to him. For some reason this was not done, and the exposure of the questionable methods adopted to bolster up an insolvent bank is the result. A case of identically the same character is brought by Receiver Tompkins against Scott Hayes of this city, except that the amount claimed to be due the bank by Hayes is $9,069.91.
