Boyd v. Robinson

31 S.E. 29, 104 Ga. 793, 1898 Ga. LEXIS 429
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedJuly 19, 1898
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 31 S.E. 29 (Boyd v. Robinson) 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
Boyd v. Robinson, 31 S.E. 29, 104 Ga. 793, 1898 Ga. LEXIS 429 (Ga. 1898).

Opinion

Simmons, C. J.

It will be seen from the official report, that the Southern Mutual Building & Loan Association became insolvent, and that certain of its stockholders filed in the superior court of Fulton county, the county of the residence of the [799]*799corporation, an equitable petition which alleged various acts of fraud and collusion between some of the officers of the corporation and certain other parties, and prayed an injunction and the appointment of a receiver. These prayers were granted by the court, and receivers were appointed to collect and to take charge of the assets of the corporation. The original petitioners and the receivers then filed an amendment, in the nature of a supplemental bill or a petition ancillary to the original petition, making various allegations and setting out the reasons why it was necessary to make all the members of the association parties to the action, naming as parties both those members who had received advances and those who had not, and alleging that there were 290 of the former class. Among those named as having received advances was Boyd, the plaintiff in error here. He in his own behalf demurred to the amendment, on the grounds, that there was a misjoinder of parties plaintiff, misjoinder of parties defendant, multifariousness, want of jurisdiction in the court over defendant Boyd, and that the amendment set out no cause of action against him.

1. While we think it was not necessary for the original petitioners to have joined as parties plaintiff in this amendment in order to collect the assets of the association, still, as they were the original parties plaintiff to the petition and interested in the collection of the assets, they may properly have been parties plaintiff to the amendment. When the assets of the corporation were placed in the hands of receivers, these receivers represented the corporation, and, under the order of the court, could have filed this ancillary petition without joining as parties plaintiff therein the original plaintiffs. If the receivers had a cause of action, the court did not err in refusing to dismiss the petition on the ground that these other parties plaintiff had j oined therein. Under the facts alleged in the amended petition, there was no error in overruling the demurrer setting up a misjoinder of parties defendant. The association was a corporation having many members. While the liability of the members may have been different as to amounts and degree, yet all the members were mutually interested in the final decree to be had under the original petition. The amendment [800]*800shows that there were five classes of stockholders in the association, some of whom had received advances and some who had not. In order to do exact and complete justice to each member, it was necessary to have all made parties to the proceeding so that all would be bound by the final decree to be taken at the termination of the litigation. “A court of equity has jurisdiction at the suit of shareholders of unredeemed shares in a building association to call the redeemed shareholders to account, enforce payment of what they respectively owe, distribute the fund among the unredeemed shareholders, and wind up the concern; and where suit is brought to wind up the affairs of such an association, all the shareholders should be made parties, and if any have been illegally released, their liabilities should be enforced.” 2 Lawson’s Rights, Rem. & Pr. § 593. “All persons who are directly or consequentially interested in the event of the suit are properly made parties to a bill in equity, so as to prevent a multiplicity of suits by or against parties at once or successively affected by the original case.” Blaisdell v. Bohr, 68 Ga. 56. See also Goodrich v. City Loan Association, 54 Ga. 98, 101. It is contended by counsel for plaintiff in error, that several distinct and independent matters were joined in the petition against several defendants, and that the court should have sustained the demurrer because of multifariousness. In our opinion, the court committed no error in overruling the demurrer on this ground. The subject-matter of the petition was the winding up of the affairs of the association so as to do exact and complete justice among its many members. The decree finally to be rendered may subject some of the members and release others. “To sustain a bill against the charge of multifariousness, it is not indispensable that all the parties should have an interest in all matters contained in the suit. It is sufficient if each party has an interest in some matter in the suit, which is common to all, and they are connected with others.” Worthy v. Johnson, 8 Ga. 236, quoted with approval in Blaisdell v. Bohr, supra. In the proceeding now under consideration, all the members of the association can be heard, all of their rights and liabilities can be determined, and the whole matter fully and finally adjudicated. Bowden v. Achor, 95 Ga. 243.

[801]*8012. The plaintiff in error contended, that if the foregoing is true it does not apply to the facts of this case, because when he secured the advance' and assigned his stock absolutely to the association, he ceased to be a member of the association, and that therefore the plaintiffs in the court below had no right to join him as one of the defendants; that if he owed the association anything, it was upon a separate and independent contract, and there was no community of interest between him and the association or its members. He relied upon White v. Mech. Ass’n, 22 Grattan, 233, Pabst v. Ass’n, 1 McArthur (D. C.), 385, and other cases from the same courts. These cases seem to sustain his contention; but, as far as we can ascertain, they have not been followed by any other courts. The great preponderance of authority is to the effect that a member .who borrows from the association, and hypothecates his stock as collateral for the-debt, does not on that account cease to be a member of the association. Mr. Endlich, in his treatise on Building Associations (2d ed.), § 121 et seq., combats the views of the Supreme Court of Virginia as expressed in White v, Mech. Ass’n, and as to that case says, in a footnote: “Observe the inconsistency: he has lost his membership, but is bound, as a member, to the duties of membership, and has even put himself under bonds to be a good member.” In section 122, after discussing the only method by which a member can cease to be a member, he says: “But upon any other plan, the borrower, undertaking to continue his payments until, having gone into the general fund, they, with the other contributories, have swelled it to a certain magnitude, distinctly retains his interest in, his right to benefit by, his privilege to participate in, the profits derived from all those various sources. It can not, therefore, upon any logical principle be said, that he has one particle less interest in the common fund of the association than before he became a borrower; that the whole scheme is in the slightest degree less mutual, as to him, than it was before; that the management of the society’s business, and the proper administration of its affairs, are of any less moment to him as a borrower, than they were to him as an investor. In the latter character he was anxious to see it prosper for the sake [802]

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Bluebook (online)
31 S.E. 29, 104 Ga. 793, 1898 Ga. LEXIS 429, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/boyd-v-robinson-ga-1898.