Local keyword variable in bash producing [Not a directory] errors

Question

I have a bash script that has 4 functions. One to output the error message:

error_message()
{
    local err_msg=${1}
    echo "Error: ${err_msg}"
}

One to check if the variable is empty:

empty_check()
{
    local name=${1}
    local val=${2}
    if [[ -z "{val// }" ]]
    then
        error_message "$name is empty"
        exit 1
    fi
}

One to check if the file exists:

exist()
{
    local f_name="${1}"
    empty_check f_name ${f_name}
    if [[ -f ${f_name} ]]
    then
        return 0
    else
        return 1
    fi
}

And then one that checks the number of lines in the file and if the file exists:

file_check()
{
    direc=$1
    file_n=$2
    count=$(find $dir_name -name $file_name | wc -l)
    lines=$(wc -l < "$direc/$file_n")
    if [ "$(exist $file_n)" -eq 1 ]
    then
        echo "Error: File does not exist"
    else
        echo "The number of lines in the file are $lines"
    fi
}

I have a directory called some_directory with a file inside called test_file and I execute the function that I need which is file_check at the bottom of the script by calling:

some_directory="/dir/test_directory"
file_check $some_directory test_file

The 2 functions that use the local keyword (empty_check() and exist()) produce this error:

./file_scr.sh[3]: local: cannot execute [Not a directory]
./file_scr.sh[4]: local: cannot execute [Not a directory]
./file_scr.sh[10]: local: cannot execute [Not a directory]
./file_scr.sh[11]: local: cannot execute [Not a directory]

If I remove the local keyword from them, then it works correctly, but I cannot do this. Can anyone guide me as to why this occurring and how to modify my file_check() so that it works with these local keywords? Thank you.