First State Bank of Hubbard v. Hubbard Farmers' Oil & Gin Co.

178 S.W. 1015, 1915 Tex. App. LEXIS 896
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 23, 1915
DocketNo. 5506.
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 178 S.W. 1015 (First State Bank of Hubbard v. Hubbard Farmers' Oil & Gin 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
First State Bank of Hubbard v. Hubbard Farmers' Oil & Gin Co., 178 S.W. 1015, 1915 Tex. App. LEXIS 896 (Tex. Ct. App. 1915).

Opinion

RICE, J.

(after stating the facts as above). Appellant challenges the correctness of said judgment postponing the payment of its claim to those of the other claimants, contending that by reason of the facts stated its debt was prior to any of the other claims so preferred, and should be paid first, and this is the principal contention involved in this appeal.

We think there can be no question but what the proceeds of the policies of insurance should be treated as standing in the place of the original property, charged with all the obligations outstanding against it. It will be recalled that the receivership was not put in motion by the appellant, nor the certificates, issued with its consent, but, on the contrary, was resisted by it. Being defeated in this, it could not be held, we think, that such judgment would bar appellant’s right to priority of payment out of such fund secured by its prior mortgage thereon, nor prevent its objecting to the payment of expenses of the litigation instituted by a junior mortgagee, ashore attempted.

If this suit involved a railroad or public-service corporation then authority is not lacking to sustain the judgment of the court; but the Hubbard Farmers’ Oil & Gin Company is a private corporation to whom appellant had furnished money, which was secured by a first mortgage, to which priority was awarded, and the application for a receiver was. made by a junior mortgagee, without appellant’s sanction or authority and over its objection. In International Trust Co. v. Decker Bros., 152 Fed. 78, at page 82, 81 C. C. A. 302, at page 306, 11 L. R. A. (N. S.) 152, at page 156, in discussing a similar question, the-court said:

“A practice has grown up incident to railroad receiverships, which, indeed, has become firmly established by judicial sanction, whereby, the receiver is considered to be legally competent under conditions of insolvency, and perhaps for other causes peculiar to the business of public service corporations, to issue receiver’s certificates, for the purpose of .paying labor claims,. *1017 within prescribed limits as to time, and other incidental and necessary expenses for carrying forward the business of the corporation, so that it may continue a going concern, and thereby to supplant or supersede the liens of mortgage claimants. The reasons, however, for the authority, are peculiar to railroad corporations, and to the enterprises in which' they engage, the most salient of which are that railroads are quasi public concerns, through which the public interests and convenience, as well as private ownership, are largely subserved, and that a maintenance of the roadway and equipment, and a continuation of the business and operation of the road, are essential to the preservation of the mortgage security. Any person or corporation, in taking and accepting a mortgage upon the property of a railroad, therefore, does so with reference to the law governing such corporations, and with knowledge, presumably, of the legal condition that, for the purpose of keeping the enterprisei a going concern, receivers may be appointed and receiver’s certificates issued in appropriate cases, which, in their force and effect, will supplant the mortgage, and hence with the understanding that the mortgage lien may be superseded by the necessary expenses for continuing the business and thereby preserving the security of the mortgage. These principles have been established by numerous adjudications in the Supreme Court of the United States. Fosdick v. Schall, 99 U. S. 235, 25 L. Ed. 339; Barton v. Barbour, 104 U. S. 126, 26 L. Ed 672; Miltenberger v. Logansport, C. & S. W. R. Co., 106 U. S. 286, 1 Sup. Ct. 140, 27 L. Ed. 117; Burnham v. Bowen, 111 U. S. 776, 4 Sup. Ct. 675, 28 L. Ed. 596; Union Trust Co. v. Illinois Midland R. Co., 6 Sup. Ct. 809, 117 U. S. 434, 29 L. Ed. 963; Wood v. Guarantee Trust & S. D. Co., 128 U. S. 416, 9 Sup. Ct. 131, 32 L. Ed. 472; Kneeland v. American Loan & T. Co., 136 U. S. 89, 10 Sup. Ct. 950, 34 L. Ed. 379. Neither the rule nor the reasons which go to its support have application to corporations engaged in strictly private enterprise. The Supreme Court of the United States has not as yet expressly said this, but it has so strongly observed the distinction- in that relation between the two characters of corporations that there is left but little room for conjecture as to what its determination in a case calling for a decision in the premises would be. It is said in Wood v. Guarantee Trust & S. D. Co., supra, that: ‘The doctrine of Fosdick v. Schall has never yet been applied in any case, except that of a railroad. The case lays great emphasis on the consideration that a railroad is a peculiar property, of a public nature, and discharging a great public work. There is a broad distinction between such a case and that of a purely private concern. We do not undertake to decide the question here, but only point it out.’ And so in Kneeland v. American Loan & T. Co., supra: ‘It is the exception, and not the rule, that such priority of liens can be displaced. We emphasize this fact of the sacredness of contract liens, for the reason that there seems to be growing an idea that the chancellor, in the exercise of his equitable powers, has unlimited discretion in this matter of the displacement of vested liens.’
“The federal courts, in both the circuit and district, have, however, passed upon the question, and are uniform in holding that a receiver of a private corporation has no such latitude in legal contemplation as it respects the issuance of receiver’s certificates as do those of a railroad or public service corporation, and that his authority for displacing mortgage liens, unless by the consent of the mortgagee, extends only to the necessary expenditures incident to administering the assets and preserving the property from deterioration pending the winding up of the business and the settlement of the receivership. This was held in Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. v. Grape Greek Coal Co. (C. C.) 50 Fed. 481, 16 L. R. A. 603. We quote from the headnote: ‘In a suit to foreclose a mortgage on the property of a coal mining company, the court has no power, as against the objection of even a small minority of the holders of the mortgage bonds, to authorize a receiver appointed in the suit to issue certificates which shall be a first lien on the mortgaged property, in order to enable him to continue the operation of the mines.’
“So in Fidelity Insurance Trust & S. D. Co. v. Roanoke Iron Co. (C. C.) 68 Fed. 623: ‘A court of equity has no power, without the consent of all lien creditors, to authorize the receiver of an insolvent private corporation, whose business is not affected with any public interest, to issue certificates which will be a paramount lien upon its property for the purpose of carrying on its business, unless it be necessary to do so in order to preserve the existence of the property or franchises.’ The same doctrine was enunciated in the case of Hanna v.

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Bluebook (online)
178 S.W. 1015, 1915 Tex. App. LEXIS 896, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/first-state-bank-of-hubbard-v-hubbard-farmers-oil-gin-co-texapp-1915.