Bryan-Brown Shoe Co. v. Block

52 Ark. 458
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedNovember 15, 1889
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 52 Ark. 458 (Bryan-Brown Shoe Co. v. Block) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bryan-Brown Shoe Co. v. Block, 52 Ark. 458 (Ark. 1889).

Opinion

Smoote, Sp. J.

C. M. Freed, a merchant at Dardanelle, Yell County, became largely indebted and failed in business ; and on the 25th day of February, 1886, he confessed judgment in favor of a number of his creditors for sums amounting in the aggregate to something over $40,000. Among the creditors preferred by these confessions of judgment were Emma Block, Mack, Stadler & Co., Henry Kleine, and' Henry Kleine, as administrator of the estate of Dora Block, E. Timer, and the First National Bank, of Little Rock, Ark. Executions were immediately issued on these judgments, and levied on the personal and real estate of Freed, including his stock of goods.

Others of Freed’s creditors, who had not been preferred by confessions of judgments, instituted actions at law on their several claims, and sued out writs of attachment, and had them levied on the same property seized under executions, the attachments being subsequent to the executions. Among the attaching creditors were Bryan-Brown Shoe Company, and Adler, Goldman & Co. The Bryan-Brown Shoe Company in addition to their general attachment, sought to hold the particular goods which they had sold to Freed, for the price thereof, under chapter 96 Mansf. Dig., and to rescind the contract of sale, upon the ground of fraudulent misrepresentations by Freed, as to his solvency, at the time of the sale.

The property was advertised for sale under the. execution levies, and then the attaching creditors filed their complaint in equity, attacking the judgments by confession as fraudulent. Among those whose judgments were attacked were Emma Block, Mack, Stadler & Co., Klein, Timer and the bank.

The attack on Emma Block’s judgment is upon the alleged ground that her claim is simulated and fraudulent, and further-, that she held Freed's mortgage on real estate more than sufficient to secure her debt, and that she should be required to seek satisfaction by foreclosure of that mortgage, before being permitted to resort to the peisonal property.

The attack on the judgment of Mack, Stadler & Co., is upon the alleged ground that it was, by fraudulent collusion between that firm and Freed, rendered for them in the sum of some $1600 in excess of what was really due them.

The execution sale was enjoined as to the personal property, a receiver appointed and ordered to sell it, which was done. Goldman, of Adler, Goldman & Co., became the purchaser of the personal property, and a question arises in the record as to whether or not he has fully paid his bid. The x-eal estate levied on was sold under the executions, and the proceeds pro rated among the execution creditors. The complaint in equity also sought to vacate the sales and conveyances of certain lands by Freed, to parties named, and subject the lands to the payment of Freed’s creditors.

Upon final hearing, the court below found, as matter of' fact, that the real estate in controversy sold by Freed, in separate parcels, respectively, to Lettie Miller, W. B. Lemoyne, A. J. and Oscar Kern, Emma Block and John Lashtofski, were each of them fraudulent and void, set them aside, and made an order for their disposition so as to make the lands available to the creditors. These lands are descxdbed in the decree. That the deed to E. Timer by Freed, to certain lands, was also fraudulent and void. That Timer had exchanged them for other lands, and sold these other lands to one Frank Singular, who still owed the purchase money, for which he executed his notes, and ordered Timer to surrender the notes in court, and held Singular as an equitable garnishee. These lands are also described in the decree. The court also found that Goldman became the purchaser of the goods at the receiver’s sale, at his bid of 70 per cent, on the invoice price of the same, and that the receiver made a mistake, in computing the 70 per cent., of $2129 in Goldman’s favor, and decreed that said sum be set off against the confessed judgments involved in this suit, which were owned by said Goldman. And the court further found that the First National Bank held collaterals to secure its confessed judgment against Freed, and enjoined it from any further participation in the proceeds of the sale of the personal property, still in the hands of the court, until it disclosed what disposition it had made made of such collaterals, how much had been collected on them, and to what extent its judgment had been reduced by such collections. And the court further found that the judgment of Emma Block was not shown by the proof to be fraudulent, and that she have her pro rata share of the proceeds of the sale of the personal property still in the receiver’s hands, and dissolved the injunction against her as to that matter. The court then dismissed the complaint as to the other creditors who held judgments by confession.

From the decree setting aside the conveyance of land, Emma Block, Lettie Miller, W. B. Lemoyne, E. Timer, C. M. Freed, A. J. and Oscar Kern, and John Lashtofski appealed. J. D. Goldman also appealed from the decree against him as to the shortage in payment for goods.

The Bryan-Brown Shoe Company and other attaching ceditors appealed from the decree dissolving the injunction against Emma Block, and allowing her to participate in the fund held by the receiver, and in refusing to either cancel her judgment and mortgage, or' remit her to her mortgage for payment; and, also, from so much of the decree as refused to cancel the judgment of Mack, Stadler & Co., and Klein, as administrator of Block, and for refusing to cancel the judgment of the bank. The bank also appealed.

So it will be seen that several questions are presented for our consideration; and we have endeavored to make the foregoing statement indicate them.

1. Vendor and Vendee: Attachment for price of goods. 2. Fraud: In the purchase of goods: Right to rescind contract. 1st. The contention that the Bryan-Brown Shoe Company, and the other attaching creditors, seeking to do so, can seize the particular goods sold by them, respectively, to Freed for the purchase money under chap. 96 Mansf. Dig. is untenable, because before any claim was asserted the goods were in the possession of the Sheriff, which cut off the right of sequestration. Fox v. Industrial Co., ante. Neither can the right to rescind the contract, on account of Freed s fraudulent representations as to his solvency, at the time of the purchase, if any such were made, be invoked; because it was manifestly apparent from the record that these attaching creditors knew as well of that fraud, if in fact it existed, when they sued for the purchase money, as they ever did afterwards; and, notwithstanding this knowledge, they pressed their claims to judgment. The case of Kraus v. Thompson, in 14th Northwestern Reporter, 266, relied upon by appellants, as to this, does not support their view.

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Bluebook (online)
52 Ark. 458, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bryan-brown-shoe-co-v-block-ark-1889.