Amick v. Columbia Casualty Co.

101 F.2d 984, 1939 U.S. App. LEXIS 4486
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedMarch 2, 1939
DocketNo. 11225
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 101 F.2d 984 (Amick v. Columbia Casualty Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Amick v. Columbia Casualty Co., 101 F.2d 984, 1939 U.S. App. LEXIS 4486 (8th Cir. 1939).

Opinion

SANBORN, Circuit Judge.

This appeal is from an order of January 25, 1938, granting to the Merchants. & Manufacturers Securities Company a. prior lien upon all of the assets in the-hands of the trustee in bankruptcy of the-Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf Oil Company- and Pennsylvania Petroleum Company,, bankrupts.

From December 21-, 1931, until June-21, 1934, these companies were in receivership in the United States District Court-for the Western District of Missouri. Nelson E. Johnson was the receiver, and; during that period was continuing the-business of these companies under authority of the court.

On June 19, 1934, the companies filed! voluntary petitions for reorganization under Section 77B of the Bankruptcy Act (Tit. 11, U.S.C., § 207, 11 U.S.C.A. § 207;. 48 Stat. 912), and on June 21, 1934,. Nelson E. Johnson was appointed temporary trustee with authority to continue the operation of the business. On February 18, 1935, Johnson was succeeded by E. E. Amick as temporary trustee, and on; February 28, 1935, the companies, the as-[985]*985sets of which had been greatly depleted by Johnson’s operations, were ordered to be liquidated. On or about March 22, 1935, Amick was elected trustee in bankruptcy of the estates of the insolvent companies.

Prior to receivership, these companies had entered into agreements with the Merchants & Manufacturers Securities Company to sell to it certain currently created accounts receivable and other evidences of indebtedness, referred to as “assigned accounts”. The companies were to collect these assigned accounts for the Securities Company and to transmit to it whatever was received in payment of them. The companies conformed to the agreement, but Johnson, when he became receiver, appropriated the payments made upon the accounts belonging to the Securities Company and commingled them with the receivership funds, which funds he apparently proceeded to lose in the operation of the business. See United States to Use of Merchants & Manufacturers Securities Co. v. Johnson, 8 Cir., 98 F.2d 462, 464. On February 4, 1932, the Securities Company intervened in the receivership proceedings, claiming that the moneys collected by Johnson tipon the assigned accounts were funds held by him in trust for it. Johnson denied the validity of the contracts with the Securities Company, and charged that they were usurious. A trial of the issues was had on June 1, 1932, at which it appeared that from December 21, 1931, to the date of the trial the receiver had collected $49,969.19 upon the assigned accounts. On March 6, 1933, the court decided that the contracts were usurious and that the lien of the Securities Company was unenforceable, but that it was a general creditor. On appeal, this Court reversed in an opinion filed March 5, 1934.' Merchants’ & Manufacturers’ Securities Co. v. Johnson, 8 Cir., 69 F.2d 940. After the denial of Johnson’s petition for rehearing on May 9, 1934, and the denial of an application for certiorari by the Supreme Court on October 8, 1934, 293 U.S. 569, 55 S.Ct. 80, 79 L.Ed. 668, the mandate of this Court was filed in the court below on October 17, 1934, and a decree was entered by that court, pursuant to the mandate, two days later. That decree awarded to the Securities Company a judgment against Johnson, receiver, for $32,489.01 with interest, and directed that it should be a special lien upon all of the assigned accounts still unpaid and upon the proceeds thereof in the hands of the receiver, and provided that if the receiver had disposed of any such proceeds he should replace them out of the general funds and assets of the receivership. This decree was made effective as of March 6, 1933.

On July 9, 1934, the Securities Company filed in the reorganization proceedings an intervening petition, and on November 28, 1934, an amended intervening petition praying for an order directing the temporary trustee to satisfy and discharge the judgment in its favor which it asserted was a prior lien upon the entire assets of the trust estates. The trustee resisted and denied that the Securities Company had any such lien. The issues were tried before the referee in bankruptcy, who decided that the Securities Company had no prior lien upon the assets in the hands of the trustee in bankruptcy. Upon petition to review, the court below reversed, and the Securities Company was granted a prior lien; this on January 25, 1938. An appeal was taken by Amick, trustee, from this order on February 23, 1938.

On October 14, 1938, this Court, upon a petition of the Columbia Casualty Company for substitution, entered an order which recites that, “the Court, being fully advised in the premises, finds that petitioner, Columbia Casualty Company, has succeeded to all right, title, interest and estate of the appellee, Merchants and Manufacturers Securities Company, in this cause, and it is, therefore, Ordered and Adjudged, that the said petition of the Columbia Casualty Company be and the same is hereby sustained; and it is further Ordered, that said petitioner, Columbia Casualty Company be and is hereby substituted as party appellee herein in place and stead of the Merchants and Manufacturers Securities Company, without prejudice to the proceedings heretofore had herein.” The basis for this substitution, although not shown in the record, was the payment of a judgment obtained by the Securities Company in an action at law against Nelson E. Johnson and the Columbia Casualty Company, the surety upon his bond as receiver. See United States to Use of Merchants & Manufacturers Securities Co. v. Johnson, 8 Cir., 98 F.2d 462. The judgment was based upon the very claim for which the Securities Company was allowed a prior lien by the order from which this appeal is taken, and the Casualty Company, .when it paid, took an assignment of the claim and the [986]*986lien from the Securities Company. The Casualty Company now seeks an affirmance of the order appealed from, for its benefit, while the trustee in bankruptcy asks that it be reversed.

The court below decided that, becaus.e of the mandate of this Court in Merchants’ & Manufacturers’ Securities Company v. Johnson, 8 Cir., 69 F.2d 940, and because of the decree of the District Court entered pursuant thereto, the Securities Company had a prior lien upon all of the assets of the bankrupt estates. That court did not decide, and had no occasion for deciding, that if the surety upon Johnson’s bond should be required to pay to the Securities Company the amount of its claim and lien in the bankruptcy proceedings, the surety would succeed to the rights and remedies of the Securities Company in those proceedings.. That question was not presented to the court below and was not considered by it.

This Court, in granting substitution to the Casualty Company, did not decide, and had no power to decide, that the rights of the Casualty Company against the assets of the bankrupt estates are the same rights that the Securities Company had at the time of the entry of the order appealed from. This Court is not a court of bankruptcy. See. Section 1(8) [now § 1(10)] and Section 11, Title 11, U.S.C., 11 U.S.C.A. §§ 1(8) now (10), 11. In bankruptcy proceedings its jurisdiction is purely appellate. Section 1(3), Title 11, U.S. C., 11 U.S.C.A. § 1(3); Section 47, Title 11, U.S.C., 11 U.S.C.A.

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101 F.2d 984, 1939 U.S. App. LEXIS 4486, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/amick-v-columbia-casualty-co-ca8-1939.