Childress v. Dickenson County Bank

170 S.E. 598, 161 Va. 97, 1933 Va. LEXIS 300
CourtSupreme Court of Virginia
DecidedSeptember 21, 1933
StatusPublished

This text of 170 S.E. 598 (Childress v. Dickenson County Bank) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Childress v. Dickenson County Bank, 170 S.E. 598, 161 Va. 97, 1933 Va. LEXIS 300 (Va. 1933).

Opinion

Epes, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

There is pending in the Circuit Court of Dickenson county a chancery cause in which the State Corporation Commission of Virginia is the complainant and the Dickenson County Bank, Inc., and others are defendants. The objects of the suit are to have a receiver appointed for the Dickenson County Bank and have it wound up as an insolvent corporation.

The decree here appealed from was entered upon proceedings had upon a petition filed hy John W. Childress in that suit; and only so much of the record has been certified up as the parties deemed pertinent to the issues raised by that petition. The only persons made parties defendant to Childress’ petition were A. P. Hilton, as receiver of the Dickenson County Bank, Inc., and L. N. Sowards, who had been appointed by the Circuit Court, of Dickenson county by a decree entered in another chancery cause therein pending under the short style of Dickenson County Bank, Inc. v. Saphrona Lockhart, and others, a special commissioner to make sale of the land involved in that suit.

The following facts are established by those allegations in the bill which are uncontradicted, by such of the allegations in the answers filed by A. P. Hilton and L. N. Sowards as are uncontradicted, and hy the depositions taken in the cause.

In October, 1930, the Dickenson County Bank, Inc., instituted a suit in tire Circuit Court of Dickenson county against Saphrona Lockhart as administratrix of D. C. Lockhart, deceased, and the heirs of D. C. Lockhart. The Dickenson County Bank was a judgment creditor of D. C. [99]*99Lockhart, deceased; and the purpose of this suit was to subject the lands of which he had died seized to the payment of this judgment and other liens on it.

The judgment of the bank which, with interest, amounted to approximately $2,000, was not the first lien on the land; but the number and amounts of the prior lien or liens do not appear from the record certified up to us.

A decree was entered in the suit of Dickenson County Bank against Saphrona Lockhart and others ordering the sale of the lands of which D. C. Lockhart had died seized, and appointing L. N. Sowards, the attorney who had brought the suit for the bank, special commissioner to make the sale. Sowards was absent in Richmond on business and requested C. R. McCoy, an attorney, to assist him in and about the sale of the property. In doing so, however, McCoy’s testimony shows that he was acting as an assistant to Sowards as attorney for the bank, not as a representative of Sowards as special commissioner.

It looked as if the bank might have to purchase the land in order to save a loss on its judgment against Lock-hart; and H. M. Bellamy, the cashier and active vice-president of the bank, and C. R. McCoy went to wtork to get someone other than the bank to purchase the land at the commissioner’s sale. They learned that John W. Childress might be interested in purchasing some of the land, of which there were several parcels. They got in touch with him and with Miss Saphrona Lockhart and effected this arrangement. Miss Lockhart agreed to bid oh the land as a whole, and Childress agreed that, if her bid was accepted, he would purchase from her two parcels of it, containing thirty-three and fifteen acres, respectively, at the price of $2,000. This arrangement was made before the sale was had.

On March 14, 1931, which seems to have been after the commissioner’s sale, at which the property was cried out to Miss Saphrona Lockhart at her bid, she, as party of the first part, and Childress, as party of the second part, exe[100]*100cuted a written contract by which she agreed to sell to Childress the thirty-three acre and fifteen acre tracts of land “in consideration of the sum of $2,000, to be paid * * as follows, viz: $300 cash in hand paid this date and $950 to be paid on the date that the sale is confirmed in the suit of Dickenson County Bank v. Saphrona Lockhart, et als., and the balance to be paid in one and two years from this date, evidenced by the note of the said party of the second part, bearing interest from this date.”

The Dickenson County Bank was not a party to the written contract above mentioned. However, Bellamy and McCoy, acting for the bank, seetned to have had some misgivings as to Miss Lockhart’s ability to pay for the land, and took steps to have Childress make the payments called for by his contract with Miss Lockhart in a way which they deemed would protect the intenest of the bank. To this end, they got Childress to agree with it and Miss Lockhart that he would use the money which he then had on deposit in the Dickenson County Bank to pay the $950 due on his purchase price when the sale was confirmed, and that it. should be paid to the bank to be applied by it on the amount due by Miss Lockhart on the purchase made by her at the commissioner’s sale.

Childress made the $300 cash payment to C. R. McCoy and executed the two notes for $375 each called for by his contract with Miss Lockhart, and, as McCoy testified, “left them in my care as a further protection to the bank.” What disposition McCoy made of the $300 is not disclosed by the record.

After paying the $300 cash payment, Childress did not have enough money on deposit in bank to pay the $950 which was payable when the sale to Miss Lockhart should be confirmed, but stated that he could procure from his daughter-in-laW a time certificate of deposit for $255 which had been deposited by h er in the Dickenson County Bank, and would apply it to the payment of the $950 if the bank would take the time certificate as a part payment on the $950. Bellamy and McCoy, acting for the [101]*101bank, told him to “go and get it, and we would take, the time certificate in on his bid, that it was going to the bank which was a very satisfactory arrangement with the bank.”

All of these arrangements between the bank, Miss Lock-hart and Childress were made at or prior to the time the written contract above mentioned was executed. However, so far as the record discloses, Sowards had no knowledge of the contract between Miss Lockhart and Childness or of any of the above mentioned arrangements made by them with Bellamy and McCoy until after the Dickenson County Bank had been placed in the hands of a receiver.

On March 25, 1931, the court entered a decree confirming the sale of the land made by Sowards, special commissioner, to Miss Lockhart. On a Thursday, “shortly after it was confirmed,” Childress and Bellamy came to Mr. McCoy’s office early in the morning; and Childress produced the time certificate of deposit he had procured from his daughter-in-law and said, “that he was ready to complete the transaction and that he and Bellamy had come there for that purpose.” McCoys who was acting as counsel for the bank, told him he had a case in court that day and could not attend to the matter; and suggested that they come back the following Saturday evening after court Was adjourned, when they “would clean up the whole matter.”

The next day, Friday, the suit of the Corporation Commission of Virginia against the Dickenson County Bank was instituted, and the bank was closed and was placed by the court in the hands of A. P. Hilton, whom it appointed as receiver for it.

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170 S.E. 598, 161 Va. 97, 1933 Va. LEXIS 300, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/childress-v-dickenson-county-bank-va-1933.