Gibson v. McCormick

10 G. & J. 65
CourtCourt of Appeals of Maryland
DecidedDecember 15, 1838
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 10 G. & J. 65 (Gibson v. McCormick) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gibson v. McCormick, 10 G. & J. 65 (Md. 1838).

Opinion

Dorsey, Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court.

An objection was taken in the course of the argument in this case, to the form of the complainant’s bill; and inasmuch as it does not provide for the coming in of the other creditors of Jacob'Gibson, and participating in the burdens and benefits of the suit, that it is not to be regarded in the nature of a- creditor’s' bill, under the act of assembly of 1785, ch. 72. .'

But this objection, we think, cannot be sustained; such a bill is not of unfrequent occurrence in the records of the equity courts of Maryland, in which it has always been treated as a creditor’s bill, in the decree founded upon it, and [101]*101all the proceedings thereunder. It has no equity, nothing to support it; but the act of assembly referred to, which prescribes no particular form of such a bill, and authorizes upon application of any creditor, the sale of the real estate in whole or in part, for the payment of the debts of a deceased debtor, whose personal estate is insufficient for the payment thereof. As far as concerns this objection, the decree of the Chancellor pursues the usual form adopted on a creditor’s bill.

The decree was also objected to, because,it awarded a sale of the lands mortgaged to the Farmers’ Bank of Maryland, for the payment of the mortgage, as well as for the payment of the debts of all other creditors of the deceased, the Farmers’ Bank being made a defendant, not a complainant in the bill.

In this objection we see no weight. A decree between co-defendants, grounded upon the pleadings between the complainants and defendants, may be made, and it is the constant practice of the courts so to do, to prevent multiplicity of suits. But such decree between co-defendants, to be binding upon them, must be founded upon, and connected with, the subject mailer in litigation between the complainant and one or more of the defendants. For this doctrine see Elliott vs. Pell, 1 Paige, 263, and Chamley vs. Lord Dunsaney and others, 2 Sch. and Lef. 710, 718. The power of the Chancery court to pass that part of the decree which has been excepted to, is conclusively established by the authorities referred to, the justice and expediency of so doing cannot be denied; the assent of the mortgagee had been given, the mortgage had been long forfeited, a sale of the equity of redemption could not be resisted; then why sell the equity of redemption, subject to the outstanding mortgage, to the manifest injury of the creditors of the deceased, and the parties to this suit, and to the multiplication of litigation, by sending the purchaser, before he could realize the benefits of his purchase, into a court of equity with his bill to redeem ? Consistently with the established principles of courts of equity, the Chancellor, in the matter complained of, has done nothing but what.it was his duty to do.

[102]*102The next exception taken to the decree is, that it has given no time to the devisees of the mortgaged premises, or those holding under them, for the payment of the mortgage debt, as directed by the-3d sec. of the act of 1785, ch. 72. This section of the act of assembly has no reference to a decree made under the circumstances of that now under consideration. By the terms of the enactment, it embraces only applications to the Chancellor to foreclose mortgages, filed by mortgagees, or their representatives. Here there is no such party complainant before the court. The bill is filed by a general creditor of the mortgagor, seeking for the payment of his debt by a sale of the mortgagor’s real estate, and the mortgaged premises among the rest. Such a creditor is not to be delayed in the remedy he seeks, by giving time to the mortgagor, or those claiming under him, to pay off the incumbrance. There is no reason or object in granting such an indulgence in a case like the present. The design of the legislature, in the enactment alluded to, was to give to the debtor an opportunity of superseding the necessity for the sale of his mortgaged estate. Would giving-time, and payment of the mortgage, remove the necessity for such sale in the case before us ? Certainly not. The sale must still be decreed for the payment of the general creditors of the deceased. So far as a sale of the mortgage premises is decreed for the payment of the mortgage debt, it is a mere incidental consequence to the decree, on the general creditors’ bill, resulting from the established principles of courts of equity.

There is nothing in the objection taken to the bill, that it does not allege the insufficiency of the personal assets to pay the debts of the deceased. That allegation, though not made in the very terms of the law, is substantially made in the bill before us, which charges the continued existence of the complainant’s claim, the exhaustion of the personal estate, and exhibits an account settled by the executor before the Orphans eourt, shewing the application of the whole personal fund to the discharge of the debts of the deceased; and that some of those debts were paid off but in part. If this [103]*103be not a sufficient statement of a fact required by the law to give Jurisdiction to the court of Chancery, it is difficult to conceive any thing that would be, short of the use of the identical words contained in the act of assembly. A particularity like this never has been required either at law or in equity.

Another ground insisted on for the reversal of this decree, is that an account preliminary thereto, should have been taken of the disposition of the personal estate by the executor, and of the debts of the deceased remaining unpaid ; and in support of this ground but one authority has been referred to, viz. that of Callis and Semmes vs. Ridout and Ringgold, 7 Gill and John. 1. But this case establishes no such rule or practice, and rests solely on the express provisions of the act of 1822, ch. 65, under which the commissioners who made sale of part of Barnaby Manor for the payment of debts, were required in the first place to give notice by advertisement, in newspapers in the state of Maryland and District of Columbia, to the creditors to exhibit to the commissioners their claims, supported by legal evidence, on or before the first day of June next thereafter, and immediately after the said first day of June, to proceed to sell such part of Barnaby Manor as may be sufficient to discharge the debts which shall have been proved to the satisfaction of the said commissioners, The decision in this case was made, not under any rule or practice of the court of Chancery, but in conformity to the peculiar provisions of this particular act of assembly. The practice under the act of 1785, ch. 72, has always been the reverse of that now contended for; and great injustice would be done to creditors by its change. If no sale of the fund provided by law for the payment of debts, is to be decreed, no creditor to be paid until all litigation as to claims against the deceased shall have terminated, the rights of creditors will be in a more deplorable condition than any wise system of legislation ever designed to place them. The exercise of that conservative power exerted by courts of equity in selling for the benefit of those concerned, property in litigation, and [104]*104preserving its fruits for those who may.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Blum v. Blum
477 A.2d 289 (Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, 1984)
Hopper v. Harlan
190 A. 841 (Court of Appeals of Maryland, 1937)
Ward v. Newbold
81 A. 793 (Court of Appeals of Maryland, 1911)
Ridgely v. Wilmer
55 A. 488 (Court of Appeals of Maryland, 1903)
Duttera v. Babylon
35 A. 64 (Court of Appeals of Maryland, 1896)
Van Bibber v. Reese
6 L.R.A. 332 (Court of Appeals of Maryland, 1889)
Simms v. Lloyd
58 Md. 477 (Court of Appeals of Maryland, 1882)
Durham v. Rhodes
23 Md. 233 (Court of Appeals of Maryland, 1865)
Cecil v. Cecil
19 Md. 72 (Court of Appeals of Maryland, 1862)
Dugan v. Hollins
11 Md. 41 (Court of Appeals of Maryland, 1857)
Watson v. Bane
7 Md. 117 (Court of Appeals of Maryland, 1854)
Hitch v. Davis
3 Md. Ch. 266 (Maryland Chancery Ct, 1851)
Bowie v. Berry
3 Md. Ch. 359 (Maryland Chancery Ct, 1851)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
10 G. & J. 65, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gibson-v-mccormick-md-1838.