City Nat. Bank of Lawton, Okl. v. Lummus Cotton Gin Sales Co.

297 S.W. 563, 1927 Tex. App. LEXIS 603
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 22, 1927
DocketNo. 7116.
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 297 S.W. 563 (City Nat. Bank of Lawton, Okl. v. Lummus Cotton Gin Sales Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City Nat. Bank of Lawton, Okl. v. Lummus Cotton Gin Sales Co., 297 S.W. 563, 1927 Tex. App. LEXIS 603 (Tex. Ct. App. 1927).

Opinion

BLAIR, J.

On March 24, 1921, appellee, Lummus Cotton Gin Sales Company, sued George E. Young, of Lawton, Okl., on his two notes for $1,900 each, payable to appellee at Dallas, Tex., and on the same day filed its affidavit and bond for a writ of garnishment before judgment to issue to appellant Liverpool & London & Globe'Insurance Company, Limited, a foreign corporation authorized to do business in Texas, alleging that garnishee was indebted to Young. The writ was legally served on March 29, 1921, at Dallas, Tex., and on May 17, 1921, garnishee answered that it was not indebted to George E. Young, of Lawton, Okl., unless by virtue of two insurance policies issued by it to Y. L. Young oh May 29, 1920, and September 15, 1920, respectively, each for $3,000, and covering certain gin property situated at Lawton, Okl.; that a fire destroyed the gin on January 7, 1921, and the loss had been adjusted with V. L. Young for $2,812.50 on each policy, or a total of $5,625, which under the terms of the policies and the adjustment was payable March 7, 1921; that the last policy issued contained a clause making the loss payable to appellant City National Bank of *564 Lawton, Okl., as its interest might appear; that garnishee was about to issue its drafts for the insurance proceeds in favor of V. L. Young and appellant bank when the writ of garnishment was served upon, it; and prayed that Y. L. Young, George E. Young and appellant bank be interpleaded and required to show their respective interest in and to the insurance proceeds due under the adjustment.

On April 28, 1921, appellant City National Bank of Lawton, Okl., filed a suit in the district court of Comanche county, Okl., against Vinnie L. Young, wife of George E. Young, and G. E. Young, on their joint note to it, and to foreclose a mortgage lien on the gin destroyed by fire, and against garnishee herein, Liverpool & London & Globe Insurance Company, Limited, a foreign corporation authorized to do business in Oklahoma, to recover the insurance proceeds as assignee of the Youngs and by virtue of the loss payable clause in its favor contained in the second policy issued, and to recover against ap-pellee, a Texas corporation located at Dallas, Tex., upon the allegation that it was claiming some interest in the insurance proceeds, but that its claim thereto was inferior to that of appellant bank. Appellant bank also caused a writ of garnishment to issue out of that suit to the garnishee herein, which was served at Lawton, Okl., May 8, 1921; and in answer to the writ garnishee set up the same facts with reference to the two policies of insurance issued to V. L. Young as were contained in its answer to the writ of garnishment theretofore filed in the Texas suit, and also pleaded that it had been served with the prior writ in the Texas case, and prayed that appellee gin company be in-terpleaded and required to assert its rights to said insurance proceeds in the Oklahoma suit. On May 21, 1921, appellant bank recovered judgment in its Oklahoma suit as prayed for, the judgment against appellee gin company being by default, and reciting that appellee had been duly served or summoned as required by the laws of Oklahoma in such cases, and that its claim to the insurance proceeds was inferior to that of appellant bank. The Youngs alone appealed from this judgment, and it appears to have been affirmed by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma in 1925. 109 Old. 271, 235 P. 908.

Pending the appeal in that case, garnishee Liverpool & London & Globe Insurance Company, Limited, filed an interpleader suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, against the Youngs, appellant bank, and the appellee, and deposited into the registry of that court the insurance proceeds. Apparently that cause is being held in abeyance pending a decision in this cause.

On May 1, 1922, appellee, Lummus Gin Company, recovered a default judgment in this suit against George E. Young on his notes for $4,814.67, with 10 per cent, interest from date of judgment, and for costs of suit.

After the interpleader suit was filed by garnishee in the United States Court proceedings were again resumed in the Texas court, wherein on June 4, 1923, appellant bank filed its answer to garnishee’s inter-pleáder suit, consisting of a demurrer, a general denial, and a plea that it had always claimed the insurance proceeds in question. Various pleadings and amended and supplemental pleadings were thereafter filed by garnishee, appellee, appellant bank, and the Youngs, which joined issues on the following questions:

(1) That the judgment of the Oklahoma state court settled and adjudicated the right of appellant bank to the insurance proceeds impounded by the garnishment proceedings herein as against all parties to this suit, and that said judgment should have been given full faith and credit by the trial court as a bar to any recovery by appellee.

(2) That Vinnie L. Young, George E. Young, and the Lawton Gin Company was one and the same person, and that, while ap-pellee’s judgment ran against George E. Young, the notes in suit represented an indebtedness of the Lawton Gin Company and Vinnie L. Young, being the balance due for certain gin machinery sold by appellee to Lawton Gin Company and placed in the gin before the fire, and which gin and machinery were covered by the insurance policies in question, and that appellee was the equitable assignee of insurance proceeds by virtue of the terms of the machinery sales contract requiring the Lawton Gin Company to take out insurance on the gin plant sufficient to cover the balance of the indebtedness due on the said machinery, with loss payable clause in favor of appellee, which the Lawton Gin Company failed to do.

(3) That Vinnie L. Young was the wife of George E. Young, and that they were partners trading under the name of Lawton Gin Company, with George E. Young in charge thereof as sole manager.

(4) That if George E. Young, Vinnie L. Young, and the Lawton Gin Company was not one and the same person, or partners as alleged, then appellant bank was estopped to deny the facts, because in handling the settlement papers with reference to the sale of the gin machinery by appellee to Lawton Gin Company, for which the notes in suit were executed by George E. Young alone in part payment, appellant bank acted as agent for appellee, and represented to appellee that such were the facts; and, further, that in handling the settlement papers as agent of appellee, appellant bank fraudulently conspired with the Youngs and induced and prevented them from taking out insurance on the Lawton Gin Company property with loss *565 payable clause in favor of appellee as the' contract for the purchase of the machinery bound them to do, but instead appellant bank had the loss payable clause in one of the policies made payable to itself to secure itself for an indebtedness created by the Youngs on the same day it caused George E. Young alone to sign the settlement papers to appel-lee creating the indebtedness herein sued upon; and that because of these matters appellant bank was and is now estopped to assert any assignment of the insurance proceeds to itself as being superior to the equitable assignment thereof to appellee.

(5) That the delivery of the gin machinery purchased under a contract signed by “Law-ton Gin Company, by George E. Young,” to George E.

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Bluebook (online)
297 S.W. 563, 1927 Tex. App. LEXIS 603, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-nat-bank-of-lawton-okl-v-lummus-cotton-gin-sales-co-texapp-1927.