Charleston Nat. Bank v. Oberreich

34 F. Supp. 329, 1940 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2805
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Kentucky
DecidedAugust 14, 1940
DocketNo. 1628
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 34 F. Supp. 329 (Charleston Nat. Bank v. Oberreich) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Charleston Nat. Bank v. Oberreich, 34 F. Supp. 329, 1940 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2805 (E.D. Ky. 1940).

Opinion

SWINFORD, District Judge.

This case is before me on a motion by certain of the defendants to dismiss the bill of complaint.

[330]*330The ground of the motion is that this Court is without jurisdiction of the parties. That there is not the diversity of citizenship required by Section 24 of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C.A. § 41 (1) (b).

The plaintiff, a resident of West Virginia, holds a mortgage on certain oil and gas leases on land in Johnson County, Kentucky. The defendant Louie H. Oberreich is the owner of the mortgaged property. The defendants Sue Evans Caperton and Woods A. Caperton, Jr., claim a right of subrogation to certain proceeds which might be expected to be derived from the property. Their interest as parties has nothing to do with the determination of the question here involved. These three persons, Oberreich and the two Capertons, were originally the only defendants and all were residents of Indiana.

The suit was brought in this court to foreclose the mortgage on the oil and gas leases, and for the appointment of a receiver to take charge, of the property. The receiver was • appointed. Thereafter the defendant Oberreich and the two Caper-tons filed their answers and joined in the plaintiff’s prayer for a foreclosure of the mortgage.

Thereafter, one W. J. Maier, Jr., a citizen and resident of West Virginia, intervened in the proceeding and filed his answer and cross-complaint. The intervener set up an agreement entered into with the defendant Oberreich, owner of the mortgaged property.

The intervening petition, among other things, alleges:

“Pursuant to the authority so vested, the defendant Louie H. Oberreich, Trustee, entered into an agreement with intervener dated July 15, 1935, whereby said Trustee sold to intervener at the well heads all gas that might be produced from said property and intervener undertook to operate said property and to connect or cause to be connected to pipe line the major portion of the gas wells drilled thereon. Said agreement was made and executed with the knowledge, consent and approval of the complainant, The Charleston National Bank.”

“At the time of the negotiations for said contract of July 15, 1935 between the intervener and the Trustee, complainant, The Charleston National Bank, not only approved the terms proposed for the operation of’ said property but urged intervener to proceed with his proposed arrangement for the marketing of the gas and represented to intervener that it was not complainant’s intention to foreclose said purported mortgage and that even in the event of such attempted foreclosure, complainant, which would have to purchase the property, would not disturb the arrangement for the operation thereof and the marketing of gas therefrom. Relying upon such representations and promises, intervener entered into said agreement of July 15, 1935 with said Trustee, negotiated and entered into said agreement of July 30, 1935 with W. E. Lockhart, Receiver of Inland Gas Corporation, arranged for the laying of said pipe lines, and made the expenditures for connecting said wells, installing said meters, and otherwise placing said property on an income-producing basis, as alleged in paragraph 11 hereof, and by reason of such representations of the complainant and the reliance of intervener thereon, intervener avers that complainant is estopped to seek the cancellation of said contracts or any of them, or to dispossess intervener of the operation of said property, or to have said property sold otherwise than subject to the obligations of said contracts.”

Following the filing of this intervening petition the defendants Oberreich and the Capertons moved the Court to dismiss the proceeding on the ground that the presence of Maier as a party defendant destroyed the requisite diversity of citizenship and thereby deprived this court of jurisdiction. Alexander v. Hillman, 296 U.S. 222, 233, 56 S.Ct. 204, 80 L.Ed. 192.

When the motion to dismiss was originally made this Court, speaking through Judge H. Church Ford, said: “The sole question presented by the defendant’s motion is whether intervention by Mr. Maier, a citizen of the same state as the complainant, has the effect of defeating the jurisdiction which originally rested upon complete diversity of citizenship.

“Unless Mr. Maier was an indispensable party to the original action, the question is clearly decided by the case of Wichita R. [& Light Co.] v. Public Utilities Comm., 260 U.S. 48 [43 S.Ct. 51, 53, 67 L.Ed. 124], in which Chief Justice Taft said:

“ ‘The intervention of the Kansas Company, a citizen of the same state as the Wichita Company, its opponent, did not take away the ground of diverse citizenship. That ground existed when the suit was begun and the plaintiff set it forth in the bill as a matter entitling it to go into [331]*331the District Court. Jurisdiction once acquired on that ground is not divested by a subsequent change in the citizenship of the parties. Mullen v. Torrance, 9 Wheat. .537, 539, 6 L.Ed. 154; Clarke v. Mathewson, 12 Pet. 164, 171, 9 L.Ed. 1041; Koenigsberger v. Richmond [Silver] Mining Co., 158 U.S. 41, 49, 15 S.Ct. 751, 39 L.Ed. 889; Louisville [New Albany & Chicago] R. Co. v. Louisville Trust Co., 174 U.S. 552, 566, 19 S.Ct. 817, 43 L.Ed. 1081. Much less is such jurisdiction defeated by the intervention, by leave of the court, of a party whose presence is not essential to a decision of the controversy between the original parties. See Equity Rule 37 (33 S.Ct. XXVIII) ; Adler v. Seaman [8 Cir.], 266 F. 828, 841; King v. Barr [9 Cir.], 262 F. 56, 59; Jennings v. Smith [D.C.], 242 F. 561, 564. The Kansas Company, while it had an interest and was a proper party, was not an indispensable party. In re Engelhard [& Sons], 231 U.S. 646, 34 S.Ct. 258, 58 L.Ed. 4167

“The doctrine is. well established ‘that persons who might otherwise be deemed necessary or proper parties to the suit cannot be made parties, by reason of their being out of the jurisdiction of the court, or incapable otherwise of being made parties, or because their joinder would oust the jurisdiction as to the parties before it, the court may, in its discretion, proceed in the cause without such persons parties, and in such case the decree shall be without prejudice to the rights of the absent parties.’ Fisher v. Shropshire, 147 U.S. [133], 145 [13 S.Ct. 201, 205, 37 L.Ed. 109]; Judicial Code § 50; 28 U.S.C.A. § 111.

“It thus seems that the sole question confronting us in this case is whether Mr. Maier was an ‘indispensable’ party or merely a necessary or proper party.”

I am of the opinion that Maier is an indispensable party.

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Bluebook (online)
34 F. Supp. 329, 1940 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2805, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/charleston-nat-bank-v-oberreich-kyed-1940.