Almand v. Thomas

96 S.E. 962, 148 Ga. 369, 1918 Ga. LEXIS 343
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedSeptember 13, 1918
DocketNo. 632
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 96 S.E. 962 (Almand v. Thomas) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Almand v. Thomas, 96 S.E. 962, 148 Ga. 369, 1918 Ga. LEXIS 343 (Ga. 1918).

Opinion

Beck, P. J.

(After stating the foregoing facts.) It is unnecessary to set forth rulings made by the auditor upon the pleadings, and the motion to require certain of the defendants to answer over and more specifically the interrogatories propounded in the petition. The questions raised in the record relate to the approval by the court of two exceptions of fact to the findings of the auditor, and to certain charges of the court, and to certain rulings made at the trial.

1. After the report of the auditor was filed and certain exceptions thereto had been taken by the plaintiff and approved 'by the court, and during the progress of the trial of the issues made by the exceptions to the findings of the auditor, the defendant Almand sought to amend his answer, and tendered an amendment duly verified as required by law. The court passed an order allowing the amendment and ordering it filed, but thereafter, upon motion of plaintiff’s counsel,. set aside the order and struck the amendment as improvidently allowed. . To this ruling Almand excepted." There was no error in setting aside the order allowing the amendment. The amendment contains a series of paragraphs alleging that for want uf sufficient information the defendant can “neither admit nor deny”' the truth of a very large number of allegations in the plaintiff’s petition. These averments in the answer, in view of the materiality of certain of the paragraphs which had not been answered before the hearing by the auditor, set up matters material to the defense and raised issues which the plaintiff had the right to contest by evidence. Under the ruling in several cases, the order allowing the amendment was properly stricken. Milner v. Mutual Benefit Building Assn., 104 Ga. 101 (3), 104 (30 S. E. 648); Cureton v. Cureton, 120 Ga. 559, 566 (48 S. E. 162); Mitchell v. Schmidt, 123 Ga. 418, 421 (51 S. E. 408).

2. When all of the facts and circumstances proved upon the trial are considered, together with the admissions contained in the pleadings and the deductions which might properly be drawn from [372]*372them, it does mot appear that the court erred in approving the exceptions of fact to the two divisions of the auditor’s report numbered 1 and 2, referred to in the bill of exceptions; and the assignments of error upon the court’s order approving these exceptions afford no ground for reversal of the judgment of the court below.

3. ' Complaint is made of the following charge to the jury: “A bona fide transfer upon a valuable consideration between Charles L. Truitt and H. A. Almand would not be void, and a bona fide transaction is one in which there was no intent on the part of Truitt to hinder and delay his creditors, or, if so made, of which H. A. Almand had no knowledge or reasonable ground 'for suspicion; but if you are satisfied by the evidence that either one of those things existed, it would not be a bona fide transfer.” This portion of'the charge was excepted to on the ground that there was no evidence in the case to authorize a statement to the jury of the question of the bona fides of any transfer between Charles L. Truitt and H. A. Almand; and it was also alleged to be erroneous because it did not distinguish between the creditors of Charles L. Truitt individually and those of S. M. Truitt & Son. This 'charge can not be approved in all respects nor be held to be free from inaccuracies, but it was not error for either of the reasons set forth in the assignment of error.

4. The court instructed the jury as follows: .“You look to the petition, and the answer of Almand, and determine what paragraphs he has answered and what paragraphs he has not answered. Any statement of fact by the petitioners in the petition that is not answered by Almand is to be taken by .you as prima facie true.” Error is assigned upon this charge. This charge was not error. It was in substance a statement of the law contained in section 5539 of the Civil Code, which, following the section providing that all suits in the superior courts for legal or equitable relief shall be by petition to the court, plainly, fully, and distinctly setting forth plaintifE’s grounds of complaint and demand, declares that “All such petitions shall set forth the cause of action in orderly and distinct paragraphs, numbered consecutively; and any averment distinctly and plainly made therein, which is not denied by the defendant’s answer, shall be taken as prima facie true, unless the defendant states in his answer that he can neither admit nor deny such averment because of the want of sufficient information.”

5. The court did not err in submitting to the'jury the question-[373]*373as to whether the transaction resulting in the transfer of property by Charles L. Truitt to H. A. Almand was made with intent to hinder and delay the creditors of the firm of S. M. Truitt & Son. The creditors of the firm had a right to rely upon the assets of every member of the firm, and the trustee duly appointed in bankruptcy proceedings to have the firm declared a bankrupt, and in the course of which the firm was so declared, could proceed to recover property which had been fraudulently transferred to a third party who participated in the fraud and design to hinder and delay creditors. “The trustee may avoid any transfer by the bankrupt of his property which any creditor of such bankrupt might have avoided, and may recover the property so transferred, or its value, from the person to whom it was transferred, unless he was a bona fide holder for value prior to the date of the adjudication. Such property may be recovered or its value collected from whoever may have received it, except a bona fide holder for value. For the purpose of such recovery any court of bankruptcy as hereinbefore defined, and any Slate court which would have had jurisdiction if bankruptcy had not intervened, shall have concurrent jurisdiction.” Bankruptcy Act of -1898 as amended in 1903, § 70-e, Collier on Bankruptcy (11th ed.), 1107. In re Stokes, 106 Fed. 312, it was said: “Under Bankrupt Act 1898, Section 5, the adjudication of a partnership ¿s a bankrupt draws to the court of banlnmptcy for administration the individual estates of the parties, though they are not adjudged bankrupts individually; and such court may require an assignee for the benefit of creditors of one of the partners to surrender the assigned property to the trustee' of the partnership, by a summary order, since such assignee does not hold adversely, but- in the right of his assignor.” And in the ease of Dickas v. Barnes, 140 Fed. 849 (72 C. C. A. 261, 5 L. R. A. (N. S.) 654), it is said: “A court of bankruptcy, which is administering the estate of a bankrupt partnership, has jurisdiction, as incidental thereto, to take possession of the property of a partner, although he has not been and could not be adjudged a bankrupt individually, and to administer the same as far as necessary to a settlement, of the partnership estate.” We think these views are sound when we consider the relation of every member of the firm to the firm itself, and the liability of any property owned by a member of the firm to be subjected to the demands of the creditors of a firm.

[374]*3746. Another question made in this case is, whether, if certain conveyances made to Almand by Charles L. Truitt were void because made for the purpose of hindering, delaying, and defrauding creditors, they were void only as to existing creditors, or were also void as to persons who subsequently became creditors.

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Bluebook (online)
96 S.E. 962, 148 Ga. 369, 1918 Ga. LEXIS 343, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/almand-v-thomas-ga-1918.